


Breaking Down Barriers

by TGIsterek



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Flashbacks, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Strained Relationships, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-02-21 20:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2480612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TGIsterek/pseuds/TGIsterek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek meet at a fence, and Stiles may be the only solution to knocking it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Therianthropy Virus

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, so this is to celebrate my 1k follower milestone on tumblr. It's premise is kinda based off of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, with some obvious changes to suit the universe. It's not beta'd, but it should be fine. If there's any errors let me know. There's no actual interaction between Stiles and Derek just yet, this chapter is basically just setting the premise. Enjoy!

Stiles leaves Allison’s just as it turns nine o’clock. It’s dark out already, and it’s cold enough to see his breath billow out his mouth. He zips up his hoodie as he makes his way to the jeep, throwing his back pack into the back seat.

The growl of his stomach gives the growl of the engine a run for its money, and all he wants to do now is heat up the lasagne at home and curl up in bed and watch Parks and Rec. He hums at the plan, reversing out of the driveway.

His plan comes to an abrupt end with a splutter from the engine, and then car is suddenly slowing down.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he whines, pulling onto the side of the road. He shoves at the wheel with his palm, sinking into his seat sighing. “Great, that’s just great.”

He grabs his back pack from the back seat and gets out of the car, popping the hood to take a look. It takes about two minutes of huffing while rooting around the engine to realise he has no fucking idea what he’s even looking at before slamming the hood back down again.

He rests his elbows on the hood, head in his hands, only now taking in his surroundings. He’s on a road in the middle of the woods, in the dead of night, with a broken down jeep. To make it worse, the doors locked, and his keys are inside.

Scratch that, he’s on a road in the middle of the woods, in the dead of night, with a broken down jeep, stranded. He rests his forehead against the window, steadying out his aggravated breaths.

“Could it get any worse?” he says to nobody in particular. Hopefully. As if on cue a droplet of rain hits the back of his neck, followed by a roar of thunder. If he screams with rage after that, well, he’s the only one around to hear it.

He quickly, reluctantly, calls his dad, and he agrees to come pick him up straight away. Apparently, even after the rain, his night _could_ get even worse. His attention is caught by a swirl of blue light in the distance.

It disappears almost as quickly as it showed up, and it was moving fast. He quirks an eyebrow, choosing to hold his back pack over his head rather than investigate the dark, creepy woods and whatever inhabits it.

His father arrives within the next few minutes, and if this is the first time he’s thankful to see his father in years, well, he’s not going to say it out loud. He quickly hops in, throwing his bag in the backseat and offers his thanks.

The silence that hangs between him and his father is long and awkward, and speaks for the years of tension left to resonate between them. The only sounds are the pitter-patter of rain hitting the windshield and the low hum of the engine.

Not even Stiles can think of a way to fill the silence, not that he expected any chatter between them in the first place.

He sits hunched in his seat staring out the window, completely avoiding the sight of his father next to him. It’s pointless, there’s nothing to see only rain drops running down the window and the forest completely covered by darkness.

He sighs as his phone buzzes in his pocket, and when he takes it out it’s from Danny. It’s a simple text for such a complex plan.

**From: Danny**

**5:30 tomorrow**

His father doesn’t even glance over at him as he pushes the phone back in his pocket without responding, doesn’t even ask about the text. Stiles is glad of it, he doesn’t want the only thing he says to his father tonight to be a lie.

Instead, he sits quietly and drums his fingers against the door, looking anywhere but too far left. His attention is immediately brought to the radio when it sounds, and his father’s head quickly turns to it.

“Attention all officers, a TH51 has been sighted entering the Beacon Hills Preserve. I repeat, a TH51 at the Beacon Hills Preserve. White male, bald, six feet tall.” His father immediately pulls the radio to his mouth.

“On it,” is all he says before turning on the sirens to the cruiser and increasing speed. Stiles has listened in on enough of his father’s calls to know what a TH51 is.

“You can’t do this,” Stiles says, sitting up. His father quickly glances over at him but doesn’t respond as he picks up speed. “Dad, you can’t do this!”

“Stiles, I’m not having this conversation anymore. It’s my job to keep this town safe, no matter the circumstances.”

“What, even if it means imprisoning an innocent person?” he argues, even though he knows his efforts will be in futile.

“It isn’t a prison, Stiles, it’s a facility.” Stiles scoffs at his father’s ignorance. “They’re brought there for a reason; to get help!” Stiles gives him a levelling look, his father seemingly unaffected.

“They’re still people, they don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”

“Tell that to the families of all the people they’ve killed.”

“You mean you’ve killed.” His father’s eyes widen at him, and Stiles realizes that he’s probably gone too far. His father doesn’t open his mouth for what feels like an eternity, a heavy silence filling the air.

“We’re helping them,” he says evenly. “Both the infected and the uninfected.”

Stiles is about to argue his point when the car suddenly comes to a stop, his father raising a hand in protest when Stiles opens his mouth to speak. Stiles abruptly shuts it.

“I’m not having this conversation anymore. I have a job to do, regardless of your feelings on the matter. Now stay here and wait for me to come back.” His father leaves the car before Stiles can even tell him how he’s so _not_ going to wait in the car.

Especially when his father takes something from the trunk and runs passed his window with a rifle in one of his hands. It’s almost like he’s trying to get Stiles to follow him. He waits and counts up twenty agonizing seconds before following him into the woods.

As he runs he regrets his decision to not have thought to bring a jacket. He’s freezing and wet, but it doesn’t deter him. He pushes himself further, squinting to focus on his father’s dark figure in the distance. He steps over a root sticking out of the ground and shimmies through the tight gap between two trees.

It’s when he’s sure he’s lost track of his father when he hears a gunshot ahead of him and a distant snarl. Stiles pauses before immediately giving chase again. He almost slips in the mud as he sprints down a steep hill.

When he comes to the bottom he sees his father standing fifty feet away from him, aiming his rifle at the man in the distance and fires.

“No, wait!” he calls, but his father ignores him in favour of giving chase yet again. The guy has slowed down significantly as his father draws nearer. He runs into a small clearing and his father pauses when the man stops running. There’s barely a second between the sound of a shot and the howl that comes from him.

“Dad!” he calls, but his father hurries to the small clearing and roughly tugs the man to his knees, his clothes and face all plastered in mud. Stiles stops at the edge of the clearing, knowing there’s nothing he can do now.

The man’s eyes glow a pale blue in the dark, and large tufts of hair stick out from both sides of his face. There’s a bullet hole in his leg, and his white tee shirt is collecting blood where his father must have nicked him the first time.

The bullets must have been wolf’s bane, it’s the only way they can be slowed down. He looks so helpless where he’s kneeling on the wet ground, clothes plastered in mud and blood. He looks angry, his brow furrowed in a way they always are.

He sees a flash of red and blue lights in the distance, they must be near a road, and the faint sound of sirens draw closer. His father tightens a pair of silver handcuffs around the man’s wrist, jerking back when the man snaps his large fangs at him.

“This,” he points to the man’s snapping mouth, “is why they’re dangerous”. Stiles doesn’t reply as he watches more officers arrive, some of them wearing a different uniform that belongs to the ATC.

They quickly haul the man to his feet, roughly shoving him forward towards the van in the distance. One of them hangs back to shake his father’s hand, offering his thanks before they both begin walking in the same direction to the van.

Stiles joins them, keeping to the back of the group as they reach the armoured van and the accompanying police cars. The side of the van reads ‘ATC: Argent Therianthropy Control’. Even the sight of his name has Stiles’ stomach turning, and he wants nothing more now than to be anywhere but here.

He’s pulled from his thoughts when one of the workers approaches him when they come to a stop. He offers his hand, to which Stiles barely refrains from slapping away, shaking it instead with a tight smile.

“You and your father did good tonight, kid,” he says, like his father has just done some sort of good deed for the community. These people make him sick. Stiles nods once, something the man must mistake for fear, because suddenly he’s gripping his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to get help. It can’t hurt you.” It _is a person_ , he wants to bite back, but his thoughts are interrupted when the man in handcuffs tries to resist, but is quickly pistol whipped and pushed into a seat in the back of the van.

He swipes his claws at an ATC worker who ties chains attached to the floor around his handcuffs. They close the door on his vicious snarl, and Stiles wants to hurl.

The guy offers him a smile, taking Stiles’ hand and closing it around a brochure. “Be safe,” he says, and offers his father a nod before getting into the van.

He and his father watch the ATC van leave with the other police cars in silence. When they’re out of sight, his father wordlessly turns around and heads back for the car. Stiles doesn’t follow, instead walking in the opposite direction of his father.

He can’t stand the sight of him right now. He looks down at the brochure. ‘The Therianthropy Virus’ it reads in bold letters, followed by bullet points of information on it, like they’re some kind of sick individuals.

If Stiles stops twice to puke, well, only the owls are around to judge him.

::: :::

Derek Hale is infected with the Therianthropy Virus. Therianthropy; the Greek term, when translated, means ‘wild animal’. Another translation, as most would describe it, is ‘beast’.

The discovery came roughly five years ago, maybe less. It was classed as a mutation of the rabies virus that was originally carried by wolves. The Therianthropy Virus is an infection in the bloodstream passed on to humans through the bite or the scratch of rabid wolves. That’s what they were led to believe, anyway.

Once carried by a human, it could then be transferred to another through the same means.Symptoms included mental instability, deformed facial features, surges in energy and strength and a change in eye color. The most important signs of this infection are the elongation of finger nails and teeth.

Treatment has been carried out by an organization by the name ‘ATC: Argent Therianthropy Control.’ Once infected, patients are immediately transferred to an ATC Facility of Rehabilitation and housed there until a cure can be found.

Obviously there is no cure, because all of this is a lie. There is no infection, no disease, and certainly no virus.

Derek Hale is a werewolf, or as the world likes to call him, a Therianthrope. ‘Infection’? Derek prefers ‘gift’. ‘Argent Therianthropy Control’? Derek uses the term ‘hunters’. ‘Facility of Rehabilitation’? Well, let’s just say it’s more of a prison than a facility, and it’s where Derek’s lived for four years now.

There was an accident here last night, more of a tragedy actually. Greenberg hadn’t been taking his ‘medication’ apparently. Medication, as in wolf’s bane pills designed to limit their abilities. It weakens them, their strength, and they can’t heal as fast as they could. It affect their senses too, although alpha’s to a lesser degree.

It takes away the animal in them, the half of their soul that makes them different to humans. Derek’s sure they’re the only reason they’re allowed to walk freely around the place, so he takes it.

And Greenberg, like the idiot that he was, thought that after three years of not shifting he would be able to do it perfectly in the hopes of escaping. Derek’s seen it happen countless times before, even Greenberg has.

But the thing is, when you haven’t shifted in so long, your body forgets how to do it. Its different this time, you lose control like a wolf without an anchor, or a newly turned beta without its alpha. Instead of shifting into a werewolf, you turn into a raging, out of control monster.

Even the alpha’s like Derek or even Satomi would have trouble shifting. Even Peter, an alpha, couldn’t keep himself in control without an anchor. Greenberg was just an omega, he didn’t stand a chance.

It came out of nowhere last night, it was after curfew, and Derek was lying in bed. One second there was utter silence, and then chaos. A loud, animal-like roar rung through the facility, and Derek was sure his bed shook with it.

He was on his feet in seconds, ear pressed against the cold, steel door of his cell.

There was a sharp thud, a screech of metal, followed by another clearer roar that sounded so similar to Peter that Derek had trembled with it. Memories of the fire flooded his thoughts, and before he even realize, he was curled in on himself on his bed.

There were no characteristics associated with that roar, nothing Greenberg about it. It was the same with Peter. It sounded monstrous, but he supposes that’s all they are once they go feral, nothing of the person they once were. Nobody behind the fangs and glowing eyes, just uncontrollable rage.

His ears rung when the gunfire came, he didn’t stand a chance, and flashes of the day of the fire clouded his vision that looked and sounded so real that he could have sworn he was still there. The gunfire came to an abrupt end, and so did the screeching of metal and low snarls.

He wonders if that’s the same fate Peter was dealt. Just a bullet to the head without a second thought to spare. He hasn’t seen Peter since the day they were admitted, so his hunch is probably reality.

His mind stayed with Peter all night, and after hours of tossing and turning he drifted off into a restless sleep. He’s surprised he got any sleep at all, but when he did he had nightmares that he can remember vividly. It’s the same recurring nightmare he’s had since the day he came here.

His dream was clouded with thick, black smoke that filled his lungs with every inhale. There was nothing in his sight only falling sparks and an orange haze highlighting the blinding smoke. The sound of crackling wood of his home and the screams of his burning family surrounded him.

A wild roar- Peter- came from the distance, and then there was silence.

Derek woke in a cold sweat, jerking upright and panting for clean oxygen with tear-stained cheeks. He frantically glanced around the room, eye flicking every which way as he tried to make sense of the dark. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and he sighed as he dropped down onto the pillow, still panting.

The sun was only beginning to rise, an orange glow advancing on the night sky. He didn’t even try and go back to sleep, he never can after that particular nightmare. Instead, he got out of bed and dropped to the floor, doing push-ups to relieve some pent-up energy.

He was running on adrenaline, and he didn’t stop until he could barely feel his arms anymore. It’s been a while since he’s had this dream, and he doesn’t doubt that it was last night that caused it to plague him again.

When he stands back up again, he remakes his bed and sits at the end of it, bare feet resting on the cold, hard floor. He bent down and reached under the bed for his box of belongings. It’s just a cardboard box with a piece of paper inside, he didn’t have anything on him the day he came here.

He rests the box on his lap, pulling off the lid and taking out the folded piece of paper. He opens it, some of the ink faded from fallen tear drops and the page itself yellowing with age. It’s not as dark anymore, the early morning sun illuminating the room enough for him to make out the words.

_To whom it may concern,_

_It is our deepest regret to inform you that on the afternoon of April 27 th 2010, Peter Hale of 117 Oakwood Lane, born November 19th 1975, was diagnosed with the Therianthropy Virus. He has since been moved to a secure ATC Facility of Rehabilitation located in Beacon Hills._

_Argent Therianthropy Control provides the highest standard of accommodation for all of its patients. We pride ourselves on the quality of facilities that we have to offer. All treatment and studies are carried out in a way that is both safe and comfortable for the individual. Rest assured, our patients are in safe hands._

_Due to the nature of the Therianthropy Virus, any and all form of communication with patients is strictly prohibited. There will be no exceptions. Please refrain from trying to contact a loved one during their stay in our facility. This includes letters, phone calls and personal visits._

_If you have any information to provide to the ATC, please do not hesitate to get in contact through any means as listed on the back of this letter. For more information on the Therianthropy Virus, see the pamphlet accompanied with this letter._

_Once again, you have our condolences on the matter._

_Sincerely,_  
Gerard Argent,  
Founder and Head of the ATC.

Derek sighs, staring at it for a long time before he folds it back over twice and puts it back under the bed in its box. That could have easily been the thousandth time he’s read that letter. He scoots back up the bed and lies on his side, resting his head on his pillow.

When a relative is admitted to the facility it’s always a letter, never a personal visit, not even a phone call. Nothing but a letter and a pamphlet of information to go with it. It’s cold and impersonal, but he wouldn’t have expected anything different from an organization run by Gerard Argent. He doesn’t know why he even got a letter considering he came here with Peter.

He knows what it meant, though, the harsh truth that he was the last Hale left alive. That there was nobody on the outside to send it to, that not even Peter’s wife and kids had survived the fire. He knew his parents and Laura were dead, why else would he be the alpha?

He wonders if Peter got a letter, too. He wonders if they ever got him to calm down, or if he even lived long enough to receive a letter at all. He knows the odds are slim. He sighs at nobody in particular, alphas aren’t allowed to have cellmates.

He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them until he hears the door unlocking. His eyes open to a now brightly-lit room, and he rolls over to see the same old cracked ceiling that’s greeted him every morning. The walls are dull and grey, and the bed sheets are a faded navy blue.

When the door finally opens he’s greeted with the faint but uninviting twang of burnt metal and blood. Greenberg’s blood, no doubt. The usual nurse approaches him as he sits up, but makes no move to leave once he takes the grey cup out of her hand. He looks down at the purple wolf’s bane pill, the same one Greenberg hadn’t been taking.

His instincts scream for him to get away from it, the scent of it tearing his throat and lungs like a knife with every breath. He holds the cup with quivering hands, lip trembling as the cup reaches his mouth. The nurse watches him, unmoving still.

He rolls his eyes out of her sight and tilts his head back, swallowing the pill and feeling it burn his insides as it passes through his system. When she seems satisfied she moves on to the next cell. Last night must have been bad if they’re being monitored over it.

He quickly throws a shirt on and makes his way out into the hall, and if last night didn’t seem real enough, the sight before him definitely is. A piece of jagged metal that was formerly Greenberg’s cell door sits in the middle of the hallway, nothing but hinges left at the doorway of the cell.

Deep, thick scratches line the floor, walls and ceiling, which are all coated with streaks and drops of blood. It makes him want to throw up, but on the bright side, they had the decency to move his body.

He wonders what happened to his roommate Jared.

He glances at all the debris, supposing there’s a reason behind why it hasn’t been cleaned up yet. He knows this is a message, telling all the wolves that this is what happens when you don’t follow the rules. They’re big on setting examples like that. He hopes to God everyone listens.

When the reality of what happened hits him, he quickly tears himself away from the mess and moves down the hall. His heartbeat echoes in his ears as he picks up the pace, willing the anxiety pooling in his stomach away.

He heads to the cafeteria without an ounce of hunger, his stomach already full with the feeling of dread.

The heavy steel doors to the cafeteria slide open, and he immediately spots his make-shift pack across the room. Erica, Isaac and Boyd are all huddled around their usual table. Seeing his betas soothes him significantly, and he takes the seat next to Isaac across from Boyd and Erica.

 “You hear the news?” Boyd asks in lieu of an actual greeting. He sighs quietly, he should have known last night’s events would have been the gossip of the whole facility.

“Hear it? I saw it.” All three raise their eyebrows in shock, and honestly, he thought everyone would have known by now considering how fast word travels in this place. “Blood everywhere.” He figured they wouldn’t have seen it, Derek’s cell is the furthest from the cafeteria.

“I never liked him anyway,” Erica responds without an ounce of sympathy. It’s a character trait he’ll never wrap his head around, how someone so pleasant could be so cold at times.

“Erica!” Isaac scolds, sharing a look with Boyd with an expression that makes it seem like he isn’t as outraged as he appears to be.

“What?” she shrugs, taking a mouthful of food. “It’s _Greenberg_. It’s not like he’ll be missed.” Isaac and Boyd chuckle. Derek doesn’t find it so funny, but he doesn’t say as much. At the end of the day it’s another werewolf marked off Gerard Argent’s list. One day, it will be their names with a line running through them.

“Derek,” Isaac says, snapping him out of his thoughts. Something in his tone suggests it’s not the first time he’s called him. Isaac gently pulls his fingers away from where he was gripping the table so hard his knuckles were turning white. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it. “Want to come get some food?”

“No, um- I’m not hungry,” he replies weakly. To Isaac’s flat look, he sighs, knowing there’s probably an ulterior motive in there somewhere. He unwillingly stands and follows Isaac into the queue, both of them grabbing trays. He taps his fingers against the tray idly as they wait for the queue to move forward.

Isaac is different to the others, he and Derek have had a tightly knit bond since he arrived here. Both of them losing their families and being betrayed by people they love brought them closer together. He’s the only person Derek has ever opened up to about his last few months of freedom.

It’s something he could never quite include Erica and Boyd in, they wouldn’t understand like Isaac does. Isaac’s mother died when he was a little boy, and his father blamed him for it ever since. When his father found out he had been bitten he reported Isaac to the ATC.

His brother died trying to protect him, and it’s something that hangs on Isaac’s shoulders every day. Derek gets it, the overwhelming weight of guilt crushing you. It’s hard to keep standing on your own two feet with it, as cliché as it sounds.

“You okay?” Isaac asks over his shoulder, eyes flicking down to where Derek is anxiously tapping against his tray. Derek abruptly stops, clearing his throat as he urges Isaac further down the line.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure, you seem a little jumpy t-”

“Isaac,” he cuts in, a stern warning for him to drop it. “I said I was fine.” Isaac stares at him for a moment before swallowing, nodding as he dips his head down and turns.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says quietly. “I just- I’m here.” Derek sighs, any tension he was feeling dissipating. He pats Isaac’s shoulder and rests his hand there for a moment, taking it away with a squeeze, just to show he appreciates the sentiment. Isaac perks up again, a small smile on his face when he glances over his shoulder to Derek.

They walk back to their table in silence, Derek walking by his side empty handed, having abandoned his tray at the end of the queue when Isaac was done. McCall, another omega, rounds one of the tables and walks towards them.

“Hey,” he smiles brightly at Isaac as he passes Derek, ignoring his presence completely. It’s something he’s done for the past four years, and honestly, Derek doesn’t blame the kid. There’s something different about him today, though, his scent is off.

Isaac smiles back and replies, and once Scott passes them completely he looks over his shoulder at his retreating figure. He takes a deep breath, the faint smell already fading.

“Derek?” Isaac asks. Only now does he realize that he’s stopped walking, just standing in the aisle watching McCall. He knew Isaac missed it, his senses aren’t strong enough as a beta to notice it. “You okay?”

Derek takes one more glance at McCall before he continues walking. “Fine,” he says, ignoring the suspicious look Isaac is giving. He knows that smell.

It was the undeniable, prohibited, sweet smell of sugar.

::: :::

Stiles groans as his alarm sounds for the fourth time this morning. He flings an arm out from where he’s curled up in a ball with his blankets wrapped around him like a burrito. He taps around the bedside locker with his extended finger until he finally catches the snooze button on his phone. He hoped that after pressing it four times already it would have taken the hint.

He’s exhausted, having coming home late after walking home from the preserve in the blistering cold and rain. His father was already in bed when he came home, which suited him fine because he couldn’t face him after what he did.

He immediately jumped in the shower and then sat up late finishing his Econ homework that he planned on doing once his father drove him home last night.

He curls back in on himself, whining when a shimmer of light passes over his face through an opening in the blanket. If he doesn’t get up now, he’ll definitely be late for school. Considering the time he’s spent sleeping in, he’ll be lucky to get there before first bell.

“Come on, get up or you’ll be late,” his father calls in as he passes by the open door and goes in into the bathroom, seemingly forgetting the tension between them and what happened last night. Either that, or he’s ignoring it completely.

Stiles rolls onto his back, pouting when he pushes the blanket away from his face so he can breathe again. He squints again at the open curtains, eyes adjusting to the light. Why does the world have to be so bright?

He sighs, willing himself to sit up and climbs out of bed, waiting for his father to finish up in the bathroom and head down the stairs before leaving his bedroom. He pads down the hall in his pyjamas, stretching his arms out with a wide yawn. He opts to skip taking a shower to spare himself some time before school. He took one last night so he should be fine in that department.

When he comes out of the bathroom he hears his father shuffling around loudly downstairs. He shrugs before going back to his room to get dressed. He slips on a black t-shirt, skinny jeans and his converse while simultaneously packing books into his bag.

As he walks down the stairs he’s zipping up his backpack while it hangs on one shoulder while trying to put on his red hoodie with his free hand. He bypasses the living room in favour of putting a couple of poptarts in the toaster and rushes through a quick cup of coffee. He saw his father as he passed, looking behind the couch cushions.

He holds his steaming poptarts in a piece of tissue as he heads towards the front door, stopping by the living room when he sees his father crouched on his hands and knees looking under an armchair.

“I’m going to school,” he says simply, throwing a thumb towards the door. His father startles, jerking his head up from the floor.

“Okay. You haven’t seen my keys anywhere, have you?” Stiles barely contains his disappointed sigh and points to the kitchen instead.

“Have you tried your coffee cup? You usually leave them in there when you’re finished.” His father watches him in consideration, nodding shortly as he moves to the kitchen without as much as a goodbye.

Stiles watches him leave, taking his keys off the hook and placing his hand on the handle.

 “Bye, Dad,” he says quietly, his voice small as he opens the door. He waits a moment in the threshold for a response.

“Bye,” his father says from the kitchen, too busy looking for his keys to say it to his face or offer a farewell hug. “Have a good day,” _Son. Kiddo._

Stiles scoffs at his expectations, his father hasn’t called him ‘son’ in years. He quietly closes the door and is surprised to find his jeep in the driveway. His father must have had a deputy drop it off. He gets in, blinking a few times before turning the ignition and reversing out of the driveway.

He arrives at the school fifteen minutes later thanks to a few traffic mishaps, poptarts well and truly eaten. The first bell is just ringing as he hops out of the jeep, quickly crossing the parking lot.

He spots Allison in the distance, coming out of her own car, and he waves, sparing a couple of seconds for her to wave back before dashing for the entrance. He quickly grabs his book from his locker and heads to English.

Thankfully, Miss Blake is late herself, so he slips into his seat next to Lydia before she arrives to class. She offers him a nod, which he returns with a smile as Miss Blake steps into the room.

The day drags on from there, and all he wants to do is get out and go see Scott. It feels like more than just a few hours have passed when the lunch bell rings. He makes his way to the cafeteria and carries his tray of food to the table where his friends are.

Lydia and Jackson sit together on one side of the table, and Allison sits next to Stiles’ vacant spot across from Lydia. While he wouldn’t exactly call Jackson his friend, they’ve certainly got passed the whole I-can’t-stand-the-sight-of-you phase.

He takes a seat next to Allison who offers him a pleased greeting alongside Lydia. Jackson just nods without stopping mid-sentence to say hi, continuing with some story that only Lydia seems to be invested in.

“Hey, you okay?” Allison nudges his side, pointedly looking at where he’s just pushing his food around the tray.

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “I’m just a little tired, is all.” It’s only a half-lie, but somehow he doesn’t think she’s fallen for it. His suspicions are confirmed when she rises from the table and pulls him to his feet.

“Lydia, you still collecting me later?” Jackson does stop mid-sentence this time when Lydia turns away from him.

“Of course,” she says determinedly as Allison intertwines her fingers with Stiles’ and drags him away.

“Collect me before five!” he calls, and they both offer him pitiful smiles as Allison pulls him out of the cafeteria completely. They end up on the bleachers, watching Finstock kick up a fuss at the freshman lacrosse team.

He and Scott used to do this when they were freshman, before Stiles joined the team and Scott was taken away in an ATC van. Heckling Coach at lunch time was always a weekly routine with them.

“What’s up?” Allison asks after a few minutes of silently watching Coach yell at some kid on the brink of tears. Stiles doesn’t answer, doesn’t tear his gaze away from the lacrosse field. “Is it Scott?”

The mention of his name has him turning to meet her eyes. He swallows, nodding. “I don’t know. Maybe?” he shrugs. Allison grips his hand with hers.

“Stiles, what happened?”

“My dad,” is all he says, but from the weak smile Allison gives him, he supposes that it’s enough of an explanation. “He caught another one last night.”

“Things will get better,” she says reassuringly, like she actually believes it.

“You know, I used to think so, too. Now?” he blinks, “I’m not so sure.” Allison grips his hands tighter in her own, shifts closer to him as Finstock throws a clipboard at the goalie who bats it away with his crosse.

“Oh, sure, you can catch that,” he grumbles. They both laugh, some of the awkwardness fading away.

“I miss him,” she says after a long moment of silence. Stiles nods, not turning to look at her, eyes fixed on the distance.

“He misses you, too.”

“It’s just my dad and my grandfather and-” Stiles shushes her, and she falls silent.

“I know. He knows. He understands what would happen if you got caught. He doesn’t want you risking your safety for him.” She swallows, staring into his eyes like she’ll find some loophole in his words, like they’re anything but the truth.

She nods, blinking away tears. “We’ll get him out of there. We’ll find a way.” Stiles smiles sadly at her.

“Do you really think so?”

“I believe so. I _know_ we will,” she says determinedly, like she can’t _not_ believe it. Stiles wishes he could share her optimism, but somehow, he’s not entirely convinced they could pull something like that off.

After four years, they still have yet to find the slightest piece of damning evidence on Gerard. So far he’s come up clean in every way possible, the only lead Stiles could think of burned in a fire four years ago.

“Okay,” he says quietly, drawing her into a hug that turns into her resting her head against his shoulder, his arm slung around her and rubbing soothing circles into her arm. He thinks she needs this more than he does.

They watch the field where Coach looks like he’s about to pull out every hair on his head. They don’t move an inch until the next bell signals the end of lunch, and even then they’re both reluctant to let go.

Eventually they do part, and Stiles heads for history while Allison and Lydia go to art. He finds some of the tension in his shoulders from this morning already dissipating.

::: :::

It’s later on in the afternoon when Isaac catches up with Derek again. Thankfully since then, the workers have cleaned up their little show in the hallway. It’s safe to say the message has been well and truly received, so much so that there’s word of a meeting going around.

He doesn’t think it’s likely, there’s never been a meeting before, even after a situation like this one. He doesn’t know where these rumours even start in the first place, probably with that punk Aiden. He doesn’t know how to explain it, the whole facility is just on edge today.

He’s been a little off himself today, but that’s more to do with the nightmares than anything else. He’s been working on pure energy all day, and he felt like he was going to go crazy cooped up in his room. That’s when he decided to get out of there and make his way to the exercise yard.

That’s where Isaac found him later.

“So, what do you think this means for us” he hears Isaac ask. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ground next to Derek as he bench presses in the exercise yard. Derek is still relieving some pent-up nervous energy from the night before. He finds it more therapeutic than any session with Morrell ever will.

Isaac isn’t one for really moving much. Isaac’s the kind of guy who prefers to just sit around on a couch all day. He didn’t ask to be bitten, so he doesn’t have much interest in taking advantage of his new abilities.

That, and he doesn’t see the point in training if he’ll never get the chance to make use of it.

Derek admires his optimism, but Isaac’s just that kind of guy. Not to say Derek is any more or less optimistic than Isaac, but he has a secret hope that one day this will all blow over and Gerard Argent will be caught for all the foul play going on in here behind closed doors.

Derek pauses with the weights half way down, putting them back on the stand and sitting up. “What?” he asks, wiping the sweat gathering on his forehead. With the pills, it’s a lot easier to get tired. It’s something he’s still adjusting to, having spent his entire life with supernatural strength.

“The feral,” Isaac clarifies, squinting as the sun shines in his eyes. “What do you think it means?” Derek pauses, considering him, before sliding down the bench to make room for him. He joins Derek on the bench, patiently waiting as Derek considers an answer that won’t cause him too much anxiety.

“I don’t know,” is all he can say, because it’s the truth. The facility can be random and somewhat unpredictable with their punishments. He doesn’t know if they’re even going to get punished for it.

Although, this facility seems to be a punish-one-punish-all kind of place.

“You’ve seen it before, though, right?” he asks hopefully. Maybe he’s searching for some kind of hope that Derek’s still here after five or six feral incidents. Honestly, that doesn’t mean anything, the guards could open fire at them at any time and probably receive no repercussions over it.

“More than I’d care to count,” he says bluntly. “Although, I can’t imagine their patience with us is what it used to be.” Sometimes Derek forgets just how new to the facility Isaac is. He’s never experienced something like this before, and he’s already timid enough as it is. Years of abuse can do that to a kid. He remembers being scared after the first incident, too.

“What usually happens after something like this?”

“Silence. We’ve never actually been addressed, the consequences usually just creep in eventually.” Isaac considers him.

“Like what?”

“They’ve already amped up security,” he says quietly, glancing at all the guards lined up against the wall of the yard. “They’ll get stricter, they’re already monitoring us in the mornings when we take our pill.”

“Have you ever been punished?”

“For a feral? No,” he says simply. “But like I said, their patience is probably wearing thin. I’m not gonna lie, Isaac, what happened last night? It could affect all of us.” Isaac visibly tenses, staring forward. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Isaac nods stiffly but doesn’t otherwise move. They sit in uncomfortable silence, watching the others work-out. He sees one of the twins, Aiden, watching him, but he ignores him entirely.

He’s an alpha, and he’s always tried to give Derek grief. He’s probably trying to tune his weakened hearing to listen in on them. His brother sits beside him lifting weights, not paying attention to anything of interest. Ethan’s never been a problem, just the other prick.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Isaac asks, breaking the silence. He sounds angry, but not at Derek, just at the situation in hand. Derek stays silent for a long while, already knowing the answer.

“No,” he says. The look Isaac gives him tells him he doesn’t need to further explain himself, so he sighs and rests his elbows on his knees, head resting in his open palms.

The truth is, Derek isn’t afraid. He’s not scared of anything in here, or anyone in here for that matter. There’s no fear of this place in him, just the undying hatred of everything about it, but no fear. The only thing he’s afraid of is dying of old age in this place, having lived a life of wrongful imprisonment, but not death itself.

He’s not afraid to die, not if it puts an end to the misery.

He’s pulled from his own morbid thoughts when his eyes move to McCall, who’s walking out of the main facility. He’s still a little suspicious about this morning, and a little curious. Okay, a lot of both, actually. How the hell does anyone get something like that in this place?

“You didn’t notice it this morning, did you?” he asks vaguely. Isaac perks up next to him, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“Hm?”

“McCall. We passed him in the cafeteria earlier, but you couldn’t scent him, could you?”

“No,” he says slowly. “Why?” They both look over at Scott, who’s now leaning against the concrete wall that extends out from the facility. “What did he smell like?”

Derek glances around, making sure nobody is listening or is too close to overhear, especially Aiden. Thankfully, he’s disappeared inside since the last time Derek’s spied on him. There’s no alpha’s left out here either, Ethan’s gone too, so he thinks the coast is clear.

“Sugar. He smelled like sugar.” Isaac tenses, his gaze dropping to the floor before it quickly meets Derek’s again.

“How does somebody even get sugar in here? Maybe he knows a guard who’s smuggling something in for him.”

“You’re his roommate, have you not seen anything you shouldn’t have?” Derek looks back at him now, but Isaac is staring forward still.

“No,” is all he says, his voice taking this weird tone.

“You know something, don’t you?” he asks suspiciously.

“Maybe,” he says quietly.

“God dammit, Isaac,” he hisses quietly, and Isaac startles from the change of tone. Derek would feel guilty if he wasn’t so angry right now. “What have you been up to?”

“Nothing,” he says, raising his palms in the air. Derek wraps his fingers around one of his arms to make sure he doesn’t bolt, but it’s not tight enough to hold him if Isaac doesn’t want to be held.

“Clearly, you’re up to something.”

“No – I mean, yes.” At Derek’s growing scowl he deflates. “I mean, not me, but he is.”

“Like what?”

“Like, sneaking in comics and snacks and stuff.” Derek goes wide-eyed, a frown pulling his lips down in shock and horror. “But it’s okay it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not involved,” he tries.

“ _Isaac_ ,” he hisses again. “You _are_ involved. You know about it, you’re an accessory. You’re his roommate, what are you going to do if he gets caught?”

“I-“

“You’re going to get dragged down with him. There’ll be no evidence to say that you _weren’t_ involved.” Isaac looks like he’s on the verge of tears.

“He said he’d tell them. He said he’d tell them that I had no part in it.”

“Isaac, word of mouth doesn’t mean shit to these people, don’t you understand that?” A fresh wave of fear washes over Isaac’s face, and he’d feel bad for it, but this is the reality of this place. Second chances don’t come easy.

“I just-”

“I’m gonna kill him,” he snarls determinedly, standing to his feet. He looks for Scott, and just when he thought the kid couldn’t get any stranger, he moves to the other side of the wall that extends out from the facility, where the fence starts on the other side. He takes a suspicious glances over his shoulder to make nobody is watching him before he disappears completely.

“Did you just see that?” Derek asks, turning to Isaac who’s standing behind him looking as confused as Derek feels. He nods, but when he opens his mouth to talk, Derek hears a different voice.

“All patients are immediately required for an emergency assembly in the cafeteria,” a voice says over the intercom. “All patients are immediately required for an assembly in the cafeteria.”

Isaac’s face goes immediately pale. So the rumours were true after all. It just makes him wonder what other rumours floating around turn out to be true too. He rests a hand on Isaac’s shoulder in a comforting move.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

They begin moving towards the doors with the other wolves who were out in the yard. As he guides Isaac in with arm around his shoulder he glances over his shoulder, Scott nowhere in sight.

“It’ll be fine,” he says, or hopes so at least.

::: :::

As it turns out, the plan for later on changes, and Stiles and Lydia end up at the library doing homework together. That’s perfect for Stiles, because at least now he won’t have to deal with his father when he returns from school.

They go straight there, and Stiles decides that he’ll just leave the jeep here for a couple of hours while he’s off visiting Scott. Lydia can drop him back here afterwards.

They end up doing their calculus together like they’re not about to break the law in a couple of hours and risk arrest just to see their friend. The risks have never stopped them before, and if Stiles is honest he’s gotten a little too comfortable about it.

There’s no fear about him anymore, risking his life has become something of a routine over the years. They end up bickering over a particular sum, which turns into a debate that almost gets them kicked out.

Lydia’s right though, as always.

He gets a text from Allison wishing him luck, even though she already said it when they parted after school this afternoon. He replies with a simple thanks with a smiling emojie. Lydia’s too busy kicking his ass in the race to solve the next equation to notice he stopped.

He sighs and only copies her a little to try and catch up. She wins. He loses. She’s smug. He sighs. In Stiles’ defence he _does_ win the next one, and only rubs it in her face a little bit. She scowls and goes and gets some coffee, coming back with a deliberately overly sugary coffee for him.

He takes that as a win.

They leave at quarter to five, homework still unfinished but they agree to just do it at home later. They stop in the convenience store next door before they leave and Stiles buys a four pack of donuts and some Coke.

Lydia shakes her head at him, but Stiles shrugs as he stuffs his purchases into his backpack. They both know they’re not for him, but they both play along anyway. They’re out of the town in minutes, sticking to the outskirts.

“Thanks for doing this, Lyds,” he says, glancing over at her as she turns the car down an old road.

“It’s the least I could do,” she says, eyes trained on the road. “It’s no problem.” Stiles nods, doesn’t know what else to say, and turns back to the passing cluster of trees. He feels like he should thank her every time she does this for him. It’s the least he could do, too. She doesn’t owe him anything.

The facility is deep in the forest, but there’s only so far one can go, and only so long one can stay. He almost jumps when his phone pings in his pocket, and makes a mental note to turn it on silent.

**From: Danny**

**Good to go.**

Danny’s a friend of his, an older friend, who runs the security system at the facility. They met through Allison, and he’s been doing them a few favours over the years. He turns the camera off where Scott and Stiles meet, or loops footage or- whatever, he’s a tech genius. He doesn’t reply, turns his phone on vibrate and pushes it back into his pocket. Lydia doesn’t ask, she knows the drill by now.

She’s been driving him here at least three times a week for the last three or four years. He’d drive himself, but an empty car parked near an out of bounds facility would look mighty suspicious. She’ll drop him off and then pick him up in a couple of hours.

He sighs to himself, wishing for just one time that he could see his friend without a life-threatening fence stuck between the two of them.

The car pulls to a stop in the usual spot, nothing significant about the area but an out of shape tree on the left. Stiles smiles weakly at her as he pulls up his back pack from the floor and moves to get out.

“Tell him I was asking for him,” she says, like Stiles was going to visit Scott at college and not a werewolf prison. He nods anyway, closing the door and waving her off before setting off into the trees.

He takes the usual route, and it’s about a ten or fifteen minute walk to the spot. It’s the only way he knows how to get there without getting caught by any hunters.

He climbs over large boulders and shimmies down a hill, using rocks sticking out of a stream to get across. It would be a beautiful view of nature if it wasn’t for the vague outline of a concrete building beyond the trees.

About half way there his resolve wanes and he takes one of the donuts from the pack. Whatever, he’s weak, okay?

He pants his way up the final steep slope, the facility just beyond the group of bushes at the top. He’s careful not to tear a thread out of his hoodie as he passes through, pulling the thorns out of the material before pushing on. When he pushes the last branch out of his way, he’s met with the familiar sight of a barbed wire fence, Scott sitting cross-legged on the other side.

He sits out of view from the rest of the facility. A large concrete wall extends from the main building, and the fence begins about four feet from the end of the wall. It extends out perpendicular to the wall for another couple of feet before continuing parallel to the wall. Scott sits in the gap between the beginning of the fence and the end of the wall, out of sight from the rest of the facility.

Stiles’ heart breaks a little just looking at him, his head dipped as he stares at the grass beneath him.

Scott beams brightly at him when he lifts his head, something Stiles openly returns as he joins him cross-legged on the ground. Scott scoots closer, eyes immediately lowering to Stiles’ back pack sitting in his lap.

“You bring me something?”

“Well, hello to you too, buddy,” he says dryly, and Scott makes an apologetic face that doesn’t totally convince Stiles. He reaches in, pulling out the four pack- well, three pack of donuts. Scott’s eyes widen comically, and Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he actually started drooling.

“Here,” Stiles chuckles, carefully pushing one of the donuts through the large openings in the electric fence. Scott takes it, and Stiles slowly pulls his hands back through. Scott has it devoured in the time it takes for Stiles to pick up the nest one. “Jesus, do they feed you at all in there?”

Scott shrugs as he swallows the remainder of the donuts, wincing at an extra-large bite as it travels down.

Stiles almost scolds him when Scott decides to push his arms through the opening in the fence, making grabby hands at the donut. Stiles puts the donut in one of his hands and carefully guides them back out again.

“How about you don’t do that,” Stiles says calmly. “For my sanity, if nothing else.”

Scott is too busy wolfing (heh) down the donut to offer and apology, but Stiles takes the slow nod instead. One donut later and Scott is gulping down the can of Coke. He practically almost went through the fence when he saw it.

“You’re the best, Dude,” he says around a belch. Stiles laughs.

“Sometimes I think you only want me for my food.” Scott tilts his head sideways.

“Of course not,” he says seriously. “I also want you for your comics,” he says, and it’s in such a serious tone that Stiles can’t help but laugh. Scott looks vaguely proud.

“Yeah, which I kinda forgot to bring,” he says sobering, rubbing the back of his head. Scott shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“It’s okay, I forgot to bring the last one back with me.”

“Oh, Dude,” he says, a smile growing. “I went to see that new X-Men movie.” Scott’s face immediately brightens. “It was _awesome_ ,” he says in a high-pitched tone.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m totally gonna bring it to you when the DVD comes out. It’s been a while since I brought my portable DVD player.” Scott nods, something about his face off.

“Who’d you go with?”

“Um, Allison. And Lydia came, too, only because Jackson dragged her there with us. I still don’t know why Jackson came with us at all.” Scott smiles. “She’s good,” he says, answering the unasked question. Scott nods again, a sad smile on his face. “She was asking for you. Lydia, too.”

“Oh,” he says, looking a little happier now. “Tell them I was, too. And tell Jackson he’s an ass for me?”

“Always do,” he laughs, and Scott joins him. They sit there for another while, until Danny texts him that it’s time for him to go.

“Tomorrow?” Scott asks, and Stiles unconsciously looks down at his phone.

“Yeah, I think Danny’s still on shift. I’ll see you, Buddy.” They both partake in a lame handshake they can’t seem to move away from since they were kids. It’s harder to do through the fence, but it’s a risk Stiles is willing to take for the smile on Scott’s face every time they do it.

Scott peaks around a corner before he leaves and heads back. Stiles immediately leaves before the camera looking at him turns back on. When he gets back on the road Lydia is just pulling to a stop.

“How was he?” she asks, not wasting any time in pulling a u-turn and driving back the way she came.

“Good,” he says, smiling. “Really good.”

::: :::

The walk to the cafeteria is quite to say the least, nothing but the faintest sound of rapid heartbeats. It’s full of unasked questions that no one really has the answers to. Well, apparently some do, but it could be pure coincidence that one of the rumours turned out to not be a rumour at all.

It’s a little unsettling, if he’s honest.

Isaac never strays too far from his side as they walk through the corridors. They walk in a large group, nobody singling themselves off from the others. Derek knows that if his senses were at their best, the air would be thick with anxiety right now.

There’s a hint of it in the air, almost entirely distant, but it’s there.

He doesn’t have to use his senses to know that Isaac is practically radiating anxiety. His fingers twitch at his side, and Derek can hear his laboured breathing. Every now and then he’ll glance over at Derek and quickly turn away again. He wipes at his forehead a couple of times.

Isaac’s relatively new to all of this, never been in this situation before. Hell, even Derek hasn’t. There’s no never been an emergency assembly before, there’s rarely even an assembly at all. He has no idea what it means, but it’s sure as shit not anything good.

He places a comforting hand on Isaac’s shoulders that doesn’t seem to comfort him in the slightest. Isaac startles under the touch at first, but eventually sinks into Derek’s hand as it rub soothing circles into his upper arm.

Derek nods at him, a silent way of reassuring him that everything’ll be fine. Isaac nods back, but doesn’t seem to agree with him entirely. Derek is more scared for Isaac than he is for himself.

When they get to the cafeteria, most of the wolves are already there, seated at the tables. It’s getting cramped in here, like there are too many wolves coming in than they can cater for. He spots Erica and Boyd and tugs on Isaac’s arm for him to follow him over to them. They sit at their usual seats, an unsettling tension to the air.

There’s low mumbling around them, some of the wolves look more worried than others, some look on the verge of tears, and others look totally zen. Satomi especially doesn’t seem too fazed by what’s happening.

When he takes a look at Erica, her face is careful, but there’s a hint of fear breaking the surface. She offers him a reassuring smile that doesn’t come out that way at all, and something in her eyes tells him that she’s more worried than she’s letting on. Her eyes immediately flick across the room when the sound of a door opening quietens the speculative wolves.

Everyone’s attention turns to the front of the room, where a large steel door begins to open. There is a cluster of guards all standing along a line of mountain ash that surrounds the entrance. He takes that as a bad sign, especially since in his four years at this place, he’s never once seen that door open.

The door screeches open and the sharpness causes Isaac to startle, and Derek places a soothing hand on his shoulder. His eyes meet Erica’s briefly before the doors part, revealing an old, white-haired man.

Gerard Argent.

The sight of him makes Derek sick, it makes him want to shift, and the instinct is there, to shift and rip his throat out with his teeth. He feels his breathing become heavy, each breath loud and deep with rage. He’s feeling so many emotions right now that he doesn’t know which one to focus on.

Fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, rage. The memories come flooding back, the memories of everything he’s done over the last few years, everything he’s responsible for, all the death and destruction, and he’s never been this angry in his life. Never been this – this out of control.

Isaac jerks his arm back where Derek is gripping it fiercely. Derek would apologize, only he’s too busy baring his blunt teeth at Gerard where he’s walking to the edge of the mountain ash barrier. He glances around at everyone, some people are standing, and some look like they’re ready to pounce any second.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he greets them, looking around at their faces, scowls and bared human teeth reflecting his wry smirk.

This is the first time Gerard has ever addressed them, has never even showed his face in this place. He’s sure they all know who he is regardless, given their reactions.

He sighs a put-upon breath at the lack of response. “I know we haven’t had the warmest of introductions,” he starts, and Derek’s pretty sure he hears a quiet snarl. “But there’s no need to be rude.” He bounces on his heels as he moves his arms from behind his back and clasps them together.

“Better get down to business, so.” Silence. “As I’m sure you are all aware,” he begins, his voice slimy and emotionless, “we had a slight run-in with a patient last night. Unfortunately, for Mister Greenberg, he hadn’t been taking his medication. And as we all know, when you break the rules, you get punished. So with everyone’s safety in mind, action had to be taken.”

Derek’s pretty sure if they could, every wolf in the rom would be growling viciously at him.

“By no means did we intend to let the control of the situation slip through our fingers, and we felt it would be in everyone’s best interest to put him down. I’m afraid we were left with no choice.”

_Put him down_. Like Greenberg was some kind of animal. His knuckles whiten as he grips the end of the table.

“Yes, I know,” he continues. “Greenberg is a great loss to the facility, and I’m sure he will be greatly missed. But,” he raises a finger pointedly, “he did not die without cause. His death brings with it a message.

This facility will not tolerate such behaviour as demonstrated by Greenberg. Punishment will be served and action, by any means, will be taken. There are rules to this facility, and they are rules that you _will_ abide by. All of you. Do I make myself clear?” All he gets is silence in return.

“There will be no more second chances, there will be no more unbroken rules left unpunished, there will be no mercy. Unless a fate to match Greenberg is desired, I strongly recommend following the rules as they stand. Understood?”

He pauses as if waiting for a response, continuing when he receives nothing other than fierce glares all aimed directly at him.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.” Derek hears something resembling a growl behind him, and Gerard thankfully doesn’t hear it or chooses to ignore it, because he’s now pacing along the line of mountain ash.

 “Continuing with our topic of punishment, there will be another announcement. It has come to our attention that many others have adopted Greenberg’s outlook, so we have been left with no choice but to perform a complete room search with immediate effect.”

Loud mumbling erupts amongst the wolves, Gerard watching with a smirk as they process the information given. He waits for it to die down before speaking again.

“I sincerely hope our source is wrong. For all of your sake.” With that he spins on his heel and retreats through the closing doors.The wolves sit in reflective silence, before the door closes and they erupt in chat again. Derek sighs as the doors close on his retreating form.

Derek startles as someone puts their hand on his, and when he finally looks away from the now closed doors, Erica is smiling softly at him.

“You okay?” He glances back to the door momentarily before nodding. Seeing Gerard again like that, it does things to him, unsettles him as the memories of that day flash in his mind. All he wants to do now is curl up in his bed and he can’t even do that.

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing. “Yeah.” She smiles comfortingly, releasing his hand. He watches the wolves around him begin to stand and leave in the direction of their cells. His stomach twists with worry when his eyes finally land on Isaac’s panicked face.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he grips Isaac’s shoulder. Isaac looks up at him with cloudy eyes, face pinched with worry.

“Scott,” is all he says, and suddenly it clicks.


	2. Good Ol' Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for interaction!

“Hey, Derek,” Nate grins without mirth. Derek saw him approach from afar, as he stood outside his cell waiting for one of the hunters to come and rummage through the only space he has left to himself. It’s the fact that he saw Nate approach that he didn’t just jump on him right there and rip his face off, had time to prepare himself for the face that helped Kate burn his family to the ground, use his sister as an in, the face that fooled them.

Derek doesn’t answer, instead averts his gaze. “Been a long time, huh?”

“Four years,” Derek answers quickly, looking back at him, unable to help himself. He silently scalds himself when Nate’s face breaks into a smug grin, finding joy in Derek taking the bait.

“Feels like ten,” he says earnestly, patting Derek’s arm as he passes on his way to Derek’s cell. Derek doesn’t even comment on how true that statement actually is. He’s spent a long time in here, and counting the days is one of the only things that have kept him sane over the years.

He glances around him, the other wolves watching as hunters turn their cells upside down, invade every last ounce of privacy they have. No one’s found anything yet. _Yet_. McCall hasn’t shown up yet either, still missing since he rounded that corner to the fence.

That must be where he gets it, the prohibited food that he must be sneaking into the facility. _How often does he do it? How does he do it? Does he know an escape route?_ Derek can’t imagine anyone who can get in and out of this place on a daily basis would ever want to come _in_ again.

He must know someone, a connection to the outside, which means that there’s someone stupid enough to put themselves and McCall in danger just for a donut or a candy bar or whatever the fuck McCall’s been up to behind closed doors.

He wonders if it’s a werewolf that’s doing it, because God knows nobody out there would dare to approach a facility full of _Therianthropes_. He wonders if there’s even a wolf that would be so stupid as to even _think_ about walking within a fifty mile radius of a place like this.

He doesn’t dwell on what this means for Isaac, either, who he left standing outside his cell on his own. He didn’t want to, but it was protocol that every wolf had to stand outside their own cell. McCall better be there to take the fall all on his fucking own.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by the sound and sight of Nate flipping over his mattress. Derek huffs in annoyance, folds his arms over his chest and leans against the doorframe. He has no finesse, Derek can’t help but notice. His movements are frantic, and rushed. _Eager_ , if anything. Eager to have an excuse to put down the last Hale going.

He looks everywhere, under the bed, even pulls the whole frame away from the wall, pulls away the bed sheets, opens the blanket cover, pillow cases and even checks the mattress for any openings. He checks everywhere, scans every inch of the place, nothing left unturned or unchecked. Everything has to be sure.

Derek tries not to cringe, tries not to wince as Nate touches all of his belongings, runs his hands over every crevice, fingers pulling and tugging and lifting _everything_ , leaving his scent everywhere, leaving that horrible, sour taste in the air that’s never really left Derek, despite it being nowhere near him for the last four years.

It’s going to take him days to get rid of it. There’s a tint of wolf’s bane there, too, some gunpowder. He’s guessing they’ve found another wolf in the last few days, a current of electricity to be felt in the air.

He can’t stop the snarl that erupts out of his throat as Nate opens the box underneath his bed. Nate stills with his hand halfway out of the box, Peter’s letter gripped tightly in his fingers, roughly and without care. Nate doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t make an attempt to grab a weapon as Derek moves away from the doorframe to stand tall.

He _laughs_. He laughs like he genuinely finds it funny.

“You’re pathetic,” is all he says, and Derek deflates, although his chest rises and falls rapidly with every sharp intake of breath as Nate’s eyes flick over the letter, reading it line by line. There’s a cruel smirk curling his lips when he finally drags his eyes away, gently putting the page away and closing the box, humouring him as he tenderly puts the box back.

“I remember that day,” he says with a fond look, like he’s reminiscing about a joyous experience. “The good ol’ days, huh?” Derek just stares at him, trying not to pay attention to the words he hears as he speaks, tries to associate no meaning to them. “Kate says hi.” Derek flinches at the name, stares wide-eyed at Nate as he begins walking toward him.

“Kate’s dead,” he says automatically, coldly, bile coming up his throat just saying the name.

“She misses you,” he continues, slowly stepping towards him, head tilted with a sly grin, ignoring him. “You remember, don’t you? How she tastes, how she felt, still feel the way her nails scraped up your back, the soft whisper of her voice whispering sweet nothings in your ear.”

Derek tenses, curls in on himself. “Stop,” he manages. Nate laughs again, effortless, but it sounds false, angry.

“Ah, memories,” he says, voice high as he rubs a hand under his eye, stopping in front of Derek and lowering his arm to grip the door frame. Derek steps back minutely when his arm brushes against Derek’s stomach, hating the touch.

Derek raises his head, looks at Nate square in the eye and says, “Kate’s dead, I saw with my own eyes. Peter killed her, ripped her throat out with his claws. I even got some of the spray of blood on my clothes.” Nate’s smirk fades into a curled up snarl. “Felt good seeing her fall face-first into the dirt.”

Nate pauses for a moment, the smirk returning as he leans close, their faces just inches apart and enough to make Derek immensely uncomfortable. “You sure about that?” he whispers. “A werewolf’s claws can be funny things, can’t they?”

Derek stares at him, wide-eyed, taking a full step away until he’s practically standing out in the hallway. Nate takes his limp hand and shakes it, like they’re old buddies. “It was great seeing you, man, we should catch up for real sometime.”

He pats Derek’s back and then he’s gone, and then all Derek can hear are the words that have followed him every day since the fire. _Nothing personal_. It was the moment he heard those words that he realised. Realised that the only reason there’s nothing personal is because they don’t view wolves as people at all. Just faceless monsters.

He barely has time to register any of the past conversation before Boyd approaches him.

“Hey,” Boyd stops beside him, taking in Derek’s appearance before glancing over his shoulder at Nate’s retreating form, not looking back. “You okay?” Derek blinks, looks up at his face and nods. “We should go find the others,” he says, before walking away.

 _Others_. Others as in Isaac. Isaac who’s on the verge of punishment or death and all because of McCall and some idiot sneaking food into their cell. He hopes that McCall’s donut was worth Isaac’s future.

He waits until Boyd is five or six steps ahead before following behind. Most of the cells seems to be done with, the open doors revealing wolves putting their cell back together again. Isaac is still standing outside his door, and Derek can still see the sheen of sweat on Isaac’s forehead even from this distance.

He’s trembling when they stop, not wanting to get too close for fear that they’ll get into trouble. Instead they stand a little ways down the hall, not able to meet Isaac’s pleading eyes. A pillow lands on the threshold, the hunter obviously tossing it over his shoulder without a care. Isaac flinches, begins curling in on himself and suddenly there’s silence in contrast to the rustling coming from the room just a second ago.

The hunter’s steps are loud as he makes his way out the door, his boots meeting the floor heavily with each step. Isaac stills, the hunter looking at him with a blank face, before his hidden hand rises and throws a whole collection of items onto the floor.

A comic book, candy wrappers, little pieces of food still unopened. An _iPod_. That bastard.

The hunter sighs, seemingly collecting himself before he swings his arm, his hand colliding with Isaac’s face and knocking him against the wall and then to the ground. Derek steps forward, Boyd’s outstretched arm the only thing stopping him from trying to intervene. He almost pushes passed it, almost pushes Boyd to the side in an effort to fight for his beta.

The commotion seems to attract some of the other wolves as a crows starts to form around Isaac’s cell, nobody stepping too close. Derek watches as shock dawns across many of their faces, some disbelieving and some accepting with a disapproving nod. _Idiot_ , they’re probably thinking. The crowd itself seems to be drawing unwanted attention, and with each agonizing second it seems to grow larger.

Isaac makes a noise from the floor, and the hunter looks around at all of the wolves watching him in silence. Derek swallows and steps back, allowing Boyd to guide him behind his shoulder, his head dipping to stare at the ground in shame.

He can’t help himself but look up when he hears footsteps, and McCall stops at the line of onlookers on the other side of Isaac, pushing passed shoulders and nudging people out of the way to get to the forefront. His stupid smile fades off his face at the sight before him, and Derek wonders if it’s because of Isaac lying helpless on the floor, at mercy to a hunter, or if it’s because he’s been caught.

He wonders if it’s both, but doesn’t care regardless.

All he cares about is clearing Isaac’s name, and he waits. He waits for McCall to step forward, admit to it and save Isaac’s life, but he just stands there, staring wide-eyed with his jaw hanging open, not reacting fast enough to the hunter’s fist slamming right into his crooked jaw and sending him stumbling back.

In an instant, someone is shoving into his and Boyd’s sides, a group of more hunters, who stop when they take in the scene, the books and food and the two werewolves at centre stage. One of them is quick to fist his hand in Isaac’s collar and reef him to his feet, who makes a dazed sound and almost falls over again and then pulled roughly into balance.

“Hey, w-” is all he can get out before Boyd’s hand covers his mouth, and he lets him do it, doesn’t fight it as he watches a hunter roughly shove them forward. The crowd splits, hurriedly stepping out of their way. Boyd’s hand comes away from his gaping mouth, no words allowing themselves to come out.

As Isaac is marched forward, he glances over his shoulder, meeting Derek with glassy eyes, wet with unshed, fearful tears, and it takes everything Derek has not to make a move to grab him. He’s shoved around a corner and only then does Derek breathe, not even aware that he had stopped.

“Move it!” the remaining hunter yells, and everyone flinches into action, Boyd and Derek just standing there and staring at the spot where Isaac had been lying, wondering if that was the last time they’d see Isaac again.

::: :::

“Alright, bye Lyds!” he closes the door to her blue Toyota, waving her off as she leaves. He’s half way down the thankfully cruiser-less driveway when he finally notices Allison sitting on his porch step, clutching her phone in her hands that are wrapped around her bare knees.

It’s gotten dark since he left Scott, and the early spring air is still cold enough that you can see your breath with every exhale. Even _he’s_ cold, and he’s wearing layers.

“Jesus, you must be freezing,” he picks up his pace towards her, and she offers a polite smile as she stands and opens her arms in greeting.

“I’m fine,” she says over his shoulder as he embraces her into a warm hug. Allison gives good hugs. So did Scott. They must have had the best hugs back in the day. When he releases her she’s still smiling, although it’s still not meeting her eyes. It looks sad, almost.

“You want to come inside?” he asks, sensing something’s up. She nods as he opens the front door, thankfully his dad’s not home. They trail through the dark hallway to the kitchen, and he only almost trips once.

When he flicks the lights on he sees his dinner on a plate in the microwave, but no note from his dad to say so. They can’t even communicate in notes, that’s how bad it’s getting.

“You want coffee?” he changes the subject in his own head. She takes a seat at the table, taking up his offer.  He can feel the tension in the room rising as he makes two mugs, silent in conversation the entire time.

He can feel her watching him, and it’s a little unnerving.

“What’s up?” he asks, taking the seat at the head of the table next to her. She takes the mug gingerly in her sleeved hands and blows, but remains otherwise silent. “Allison.”

“I want to come with you,” she says so quickly that Stiles can barely keep up with her words. Stiles watches her watch him for a moment, taking in what she just said. “To see Scott.”

“You want to come with me.” It’s not a question, he heard her loud and almost clear, he’s just having a little trouble with the concept.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says evenly, drawing out the word. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Allison considers him for a brief moment.

“Don’t try and talk me out of this,” she says, and Stiles is taken aback to say the least. “I need to do this,” she says with determination.

“You don’t have to do _any_ thing.”

“Okay. I want to do this.”

“But have you thought this through? What this means for you and your family?” Stiles is all for Allison to come with him, like, he can only imagine Scott’s dopey lovelorn face when he sees her, but seriously, someone needs to be thinking rationally right now.

“Yes, I’ve thought this through,” she says with a roll of her eyes. She’s been spending _way_ too much time with Lydia.

“But have you, though?” Allison gives him a _look_ , a look that makes him want to curl in on himself. He’s getting some serious Lydia vibes from her tonight, she’s clearly a girl on a mission, and whether or not Stiles agrees to it she’s going to go anyway.

Stiles sighs defeated already like the wuss that he is. “Have you at _least_ spared a thought for what would happen if you got caught?”

“You haven’t been caught yet,” she says simply, drinking from her mug.

“I’ve just been lucky.”

“For four years straight?” she asks with raised eyebrows that say _don’t fuck with me, bitch_. When she says it like that, he’s wondering how none of this came sooner.

“Maybe I’m just so super-fast and agile that they haven’t been able to catch me yet,” he says, puffing out his chest in a heroic manner. Allison continues giving him a flat look. “Lacrosse,” he says, with deeper tone of voice than what comes natural to him.

“Gymnastics and archery,” she points to herself looking victorious. Stiles opens his mouth to argue before he realises that he doesn’t even have an argument in the first place. He clamps his mouth shut, instead going to the microwave and heating up his lasagne.

When he sits down he’s thankful for the noise filling the silence between them.

“How was he?” she asks, downing her cup and moving to abandon it in the sink. When she comes back she’s holding the lasagne and two forks, placing it in the middle of the table and tucking into her half like it was for her. He doesn’t fight her on it, he’s not really hungry anyways.

“The usual,” he says, which pretty much means that he looked tired and sad, was bored, but was happy to see him and wanted Allison to visit him instead. Stiles has grown to accept that he’s not Scott’s number one choice after all those years.

He picks at the lasagne, not actually picking anything up on his fork, just playing with it. Allison watches him, can feel her gaze burning him. Stiles looks up to meet her gaze and she immediately looks away, eyes darting back to the lasagne, and Stiles doesn’t miss the sight of her mimicking his movements with her own fork.

“Is there something else you want to tell me?” Allison slowly looks back up again, resting her fork leaning against the plate. She flicks her hair away from her eyes, but doesn’t break eye contact. Stiles can already tell this is bad.

“Something’s up with Gerard.” Stiles refrains from gagging at the thought of the man, even after all these years the name doesn’t sit well with him. After what he done, he can barely stomach the name Argent at all, as unfair as that may be to Allison.

He doesn’t know how she can handle having him in her house, touching her stuff and eating next to each other. How she can plaster on a false smile and pretend that everything’s okay, and humour him about how her training is going when it’s not going at _all_. He sighs.

“When is there not something going on with your grandfather?” he asks, because it’s easier to refer to him like that, even if he knows that he just cut something inside Allison and twisted the knife. It’s still better than forming the word. She was either unaffected by his choice of words or managed to mask her emotions before they reached the surface.

He’s going to go with the latter, because that’s just who Allison is, who she feels she has to be. Stiles wishes she wouldn’t be so hard on herself.

“This was different,” she continues with the subject. “He was different, _nervous_ even.” Stiles doesn’t say anything, just waits on her to elaborate. “Gerard’s hard to read, always saying one thing and meaning another, always choosing what emotions to feel. But today, he was- he was _nervous_.”

“About what?” Stiles chokes, coughs to clear his throat.

“I don’t know, but he was there one minute and the next he was rushing out the door with a bunch of hunters for the facility.” Stiles nods, processing the information. It feels like minutes before he speaks.

“You think something went wrong at the facility. Something _very_ wrong, judging by his reaction.” Allison nods, not denying. “Allison, why do you want to come see Scott?” Allison opens her mouth, but he interrupts her before she can speak. “Honestly.”

And then her mask slips, her calm self dissipating behind creases and lines of worry. She still doesn’t say anything, and Stiles is sure it’s because if she does, she might lose herself completely. That’s not what hunters do, what they’re trained to fight, and sometimes it’s not easy to adopt another lifestyle. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to show emotion.

“You want to make sure he’s okay.” She nods slowly, silently. Her glassy eyes meeting Stiles’. Stiles nods back, pursing his lips. “Okay,” he says quietly, rising from the table and discarding the lasagne on the counter. His dad will eat it when he comes home. “Danny’s on shift tomorrow at six, so me and Lydia’ll come and pick you up at five thirty.”

He looks over his shoulder to where she’s still sitting at the table nodding along with what he says. He turns back and flips the switch on the socket to turn off the microwave. “So I’m gonna go and take a shower but you can hang arou-” When he turns back she’s gone, her chair pushed back under the table like she was never there.

He pauses for a moment, before turning off the lights and heading upstairs.

::: :::

Derek stares up at the ceiling, not moving, barely even breathing. Nate’s scent still fills his lungs with every intake of air, and it burns almost as much as the scent of wolf’s bane. At least, to him it does. He blinks, flashes of yesterday afternoon haunting him every time he closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep, couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Isaac’s face as he was dragged around that corner.

His heart stutters from the thought, and his stomach twists. He’d puke, but he doesn’t have the energy to. He doesn’t know if that makes sense, but that’s how he feels. He hasn’t moved a muscle all night, just stared into the darkness and tried not to feel the ghost of Boyd’s arm holding him back.

He should have done something. He should have stepped up like a good alpha would have and done something. Anything. And every time he thinks it he hears Boyd’s words in his ear, they’d barely registered at the time. They were back in Derek’s cell after it happened, and Derek didn’t even remember going back.

He stood in the entrance as Boyd fixed the bed back in place and remade it, Derek standing in silence, helpless. Like he was helpless before. Before he knew it Boyd was sitting him down, and it almost felt like he wasn’t an alpha anymore. He still was, of course, he could feel he was, but he didn’t feel like he deserved it.

Not when he stood back and watched as his beta was marched to his possible death. He still didn’t know if McCall was an alpha or a beta. If he was an alpha that would mean Peter is dead, and it’s a thought like that that makes him want to not know.

 _He’ll be okay, Derek_. _It wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could have done, and he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’ll be fine._

Now that he thinks back on it, it all sounds a bit too mechanical. Like Boyd needed to believe it as much as he needed Derek to. He almost snorted when he heard Boyd say it, as if Boyd was ignorant enough to believe it were true. That’s how he knew he was right; there are no second chances anymore, Gerard has said.

Gerard tends to stick to his word.

The lock on the door shifts, and there’s a creak of metal as the door swings open and allows the gleam of fluorescent lights into the room. He squints at the hunter and takes the offered pill, her eyes on him the entire time. He swallows, and it hurts as much as ever, despite how numb he feels.

He lays in bed for another few hours before he gets up.

His mind eventually drifts to Nate, and how he’s probably working here in the facility now. It hits him like a wave, the words that he didn’t have time to register yesterday. Kate’s _alive_. That’s impossible, she couldn’t be. He saw what happened to her that day, how she went down like a ton of bricks, blood spurting from her body as she hit the ground.

Unless- no, she couldn’t be. She has to be dead, the chances of turning from something like that are rare to say the least. It’s one in a million. Then again, Kate _is_ one in a million. He sighs, scrubs his hands over his eyes before he realizes what he’s been doing all morning. He’s abandoned his betas again- Isaac could be back.

He scrambles off the bed, and he’s close to jogging by the time he nears Isaac’s room down the hall, some of the other wolves watching him pass, some whispering lowly in each other’s ear. He can tell that the door to his cell is open, and hope blooms in his chest that they listened to him, saw he was innocent and let him back to his room in the middle of the night. He comes to a stop on the threshold of the door.

The cell is still a mess, in the same state that it was left in yesterday. He doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign, he knows it means neither of them had come back yet, but the hunters haven’t been ordered to clear the room for another pair of wolves, so he’ll take it as a win while he still can.

A part of him is telling him to take it as it is, as nothing, that having hope is a ridiculous concept in a place like this, that he’s fooling himself for even allowing himself to think there’s a chance of Isaac’s return. In the end he’s setting himself up for a fall, and he knows it, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to come by here every morning until he knows for sure that Isaac won’t come back.

A sense of dread fills him, and he helplessly pushes away the thoughts of returning to this cell every day and finding it empty, the emptiness he’d feel. _Isaac hasn’t done anything wrong, he’ll be back soon_ , he reminds himself, hopelessly optimistic. He instead focuses his mind on keeping himself busy, so he decides to pass the time by cleaning up this mess.

The first thing he does is push the frames of the beds back in their corners, sweeping some of the splinters across the floor with his feet where the bed must have been knocked against a wall. He makes the beds, both of them, and separates the piles of clothes strewn out across the floor. He collects the ones that match Isaac’s size and folds them, leaving them neatly on the bed.

McCall’s, he leaves flung across his bed, some of the sleeves hanging over the side and onto the floor. He almost wants to flip the bed over, break it in half. Derek quells the anger running through his veins, tries not to think about what he’s going to do to McCall if he ever comes back here. He smiles despite himself, thinking about laying his fist into McCall’s face. Maybe he could right that crooked jaw of his.

“I should have known you were a stress cleaner,” a voice says, and Derek’s face falls in time to turn to Erica, who’s standing with her hip leaning against the door frame. There’s a fond, but sad curl to her lips, her eyes tired.

“Must be why I keep my cell so tidy,” he remarks, and her smile grows minutely, her eyes lowering to the floor. Any other day she would have been at the prospect of him playing along. He sighs, resting his chin on his hands as he sits on the bed, staring forward. It’s a long moment of contemplative silence before she speaks again.

“We’ve been waiting for you to come out all morning,” she says. “I went to your cell and you weren’t there.” He knows she doesn’t mean anything by it, but Derek can’t help but feel guilty over abandoning his betas in a time of need. It’s seems to be a pattern of his.

“Was here.” Erica huffs a quiet laugh, and he can almost feel her rolling her eyes. Neither of them seem to be putting too much effort or enthusiasm into their banter, but it comes easy for them, and that’s the kind of relationship they’ve had for three years now.

She moves to the bed slowly, but not warily, just tired in her movements. He guesses he’s not the only one who had trouble sleeping last night. “I figured,” she drawls, curling in close to him, but not quite touching. Her knee nudges his, and he nudges hers back lamely.

“Where’s Boyd?” he asks, because it’s not often that he and Erica are separated without needing to be. It’s even rarer that she’d spend her time away from him with Derek, they’ve never really spent much time alone together. Derek barely gets time alone at all, these days, not that he has much to complain about now, of course.

“He’s in the yard, said he needed to do something worthwhile while he _waits_. Boyd’s not really one for talking.” He snorts, because _he’s noticed_. It’s one of the things he loves most about Boyd, mostly because he sees a bit of himself there. “I couldn’t even _think_ about exercise, was up all hours of the night.” She swallows, changes the subject away from her. “How are you holding up?”

Derek considers her words, and if he’s honest he doesn’t know how he feels, he hasn’t had time to even think about himself. Erica doesn’t push him on the matter, gives him time to gather his thoughts, which he’s grateful for, even though he doesn’t know where to begin.

“You know, when a pack member dies, it’s like losing a limb. You lose a part of yourself along with them. I know what it’s like to lose pack, I know better than anyone. It’s like- It’s like a void than can’t be filled, that’ll stay empty for the rest of your life. It’s hard, it’s… _hard_ ,” he finishes weakly.

“I’m sorry,” she says genuinely, gripping Derek’s hand softly. Derek’s never seen her like this, this unguarded, like her walls are down.

“Don’t be,” he shakes his head, not pulling out of her grip. “Isaac’s not my pack, he’s just- I don’t even know if he’s dead, and I don’t know if it’s the worst part. If it’s that he’s not my pack or that I’d know if he was dead if he was. It’s different with you guys, it makes it even harder.

“I know what it’s like to lose pack, I’ve lost all of mine,” he continues, his voice cracking at the end, and the grip Erica has hold of him tightens, but he remains quite otherwise. “But I’ve never lost family or friends, I don’t know what that’s like. It’s harder.” He’s only ever considered his close family as pack, he supposes family is an instinct that only really belongs to humans.

A long silence falls in the air between them, no sound other than whatever’s happening outside the cell and their long, even breaths. She keeps her hands around his for another while longer, until she pulls away and twists on the bed, settling so that she can face him. Derek doesn’t meet her, just stays sitting where he is, eyes on the ground.

“Human or wolf, you’re allowed to grieve,” she says softly. Derek hears her words echo in his head, _human or wolf_ , and with them he is turning to meet her. The look in her eyes tells Derek that she’s chosen her words carefully, that she said it exactly as she meant it.

“You think we’re humans,” he says, and it’s not a question, but a statement. She shrugs casually, a rueful smile on her face when she speaks.

“As good as,” she sighs, moving her hands to grip her knees. Derek feels a pulse of anger rise and then dissipate almost as soon as it appeared. _Wasn’t that the point? That wolves were people, too, even without being human?_

“We’re wolves, even if we don’t feel like it anymore,” he says evenly. “We’re not humans.” Erica shakes her head, her eyes lifting to the ceiling for a brief second that could have been interpreted as an eye roll.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be a wolf, I don’t know any different,” she says, exasperated. “I don’t know the difference between being a wolf and being a human.”

“What do you mean?” Derek asks, his brows furrowing. He doesn’t even realize it when his hand fists into his trousers.

“I got bit in an accident, Derek. My friend and I were out in the woods one night and we were attacked. I had an epileptic fit, and when I woke up, I was in here, being fed pills.” She blinks away tears, meeting Derek’s wide eyes. “I’ve never experienced being a wolf. There’s a whole part of me that I’ve never even had the chance to feel.”

Derek opens his mouth to speak, only to realize that there are no words that he can say, he’s speechless. He slowly closes his mouth, turning away and swallowing. “I’m sorry,” is all he says, and he wonders if it sounded as weak to Erica than it did his own ears. Erica laughs wetly, but doesn’t comment further.

Neither of them move for a long time, Erica moving to lean against the back wall at some stage. Derek stays hunched over, head resting back in his hands, staring into space. “What does a full moon feel like?” he hears Erica ask from behind him, so low even _he_ had trouble hearing it. He sighs, scooting back to rest next to her.

“When I was a kid my mom always said it was my wolf trying to fly to the moon.” He smiles bitterly at the memory, not looking at Erica but instead the bed sheets. “It’s like- It’s like a rope connecting the wolf in you to the moon, and the moon is pulling it out, like it’s a physical thing. If you know how to harness it, it can make you stronger, faster.

“If you don’t, it’s like a sudden rush of power that you’re trying desperately to control but can’t. Like there’s too much of it to handle all at once and you just- lose control.”

“Like Greenberg,” she says thoughtfully. It’s not entirely like Greenberg, but it’s the same concept. Too much power spread across too little time.

“Kind of,” he says. “But Greenberg didn’t have a pack. When you’re part of a pack it’s easier to keep control. They anchor you, in a way. Keep you solid.” Erica stays quiet, but seems interested all the same, as satisfied with that answer as she’s ever going to be. She’ll probably never experience it first hand, and that thought twists something inside Derek.

“I know you don’t know it, I know you don’t feel it like we would, but you have a pack.” Erica looks up at him through her lashes, her awed expression breaking into a small smile. “You’re my beta,” he rubs her knee with his thumb. “I might not have bit you, but packs can stretch beyond the power of the bite.”

Erica turns her head away, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Ew,” she mutters, sniffling. “Feelings.” Derek laughs, looks away to let her compose herself.

It’s not untrue, either, there were humans in Derek’s family that were always considered to be on the same level as wolves, were never treated to be anything less than wolves. He feels a level of protection just thinking about them, and he feels protection over his own pack members, over Isaac. He realizes what time of day it must be, it must be time.

He takes one last look over at McCall’s bed before standing, patting Erica’s foot as he passes. “Where are you going?” Erica looks up at him, but doesn’t make a move to follow him. He suspects she’s going to hang around in Isaac’s bed for a while.

“I have to go meet somebody,” he says quietly over his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.” He leaves her alone, heading down the hall towards the exercise yard.

By _somebody_ , he means whoever’s been feeding McCall through the fence.

::: :::

“We can turn back if you want,” Stiles grunts, hopping down off a steep drop at the end of a hill. He lands on his feet, _barely_ , before turning to grab Allison’s hand to help her down. She smiles her thanks at him, and it’s not that she needs help after he training. Doesn’t mean Stiles can’t be a gentleman.

“It’s fine,” she says airily, continuing on to walk ahead of him. She’s not the one that knows the way but Stiles gets the feeling she’s trying not to make eye contact with him, so he hangs back just over her shoulder. “We’ve come this far.”

“Not far enough that you can’t change your mind if you want to,” Stiles tries, almost tripping over a root sticking out of the ground as he bores holes into the side of her head. If she noticed, well, she pretended not to.

“What if I don’t want to?” she asks over her shoulder, finally meeting his eyes.

“What if you haven’t thought this through all the way?” he retorts, and Allison dips her head away and continues walking. He wasn’t sure bringing her here was the best idea, knows that it’s a terrible idea. He spent all hours of the night wondering why she wanted to do this now, wondering if letting her come was the right choice to make. “What if you get caught?”

“ _You_ haven’t,” she says, pausing at the edge of a small stream. Stiles steps ahead of her, using the rocks jutting out of the water as a pathway across. He manages to avoid using the rock covered in slippery moss, pointing at it and telling her to be careful.

“That wasn’t the point,” he hops off the last rock and waits for her to catch up, and they end up walking side by side.

“What is?” she squints up, and Stiles follows her gaze up to a flock of birds overhead, flying freely through the trees and dodging branches as they move. He sighs, tries not to turn it into too much of a metaphor and turns back to her.

“Your dad,” he says bluntly, and suddenly her arm is sticking out in front of him and drawing them both to a stop. She rounds on him, immediately locking eyes with his, and Stiles feels the sudden urge to run away in fear.

“Don’t try and talk me out of this,” she says, shaking her head. “This is what I want.” Her face is certain, giving nothing away.

“I just want to make sure you know what you’re risking here,” Stiles says earnestly, but it has her shaking her head again with a disbelieving smile as she starts walking again.

“What, that my dad will be killed if any of the hunters find an Argent out in the woods near the facility, that an Argent is meeting up with a wolf?” Stiles runs to catch up with her. There’s no lie to her words, Gerard won’t stand for it. He doesn’t doubt for a second that Allison would receive the same punishment.

“They’ll have his head, Allison,” he pants.

“And they’ll have yours, too,” she comes to a stop. “What, you think that the sheriff’s only son getting caught breaking Argent’s law won’t come to the same result?” she scoffs. In all this time Stiles has been doing this, he’s never once thought about what this would mean for his own father if he was ever to be caught.

Sorrow and regret twist his insides, because he’s been so busy being mad at his father for the last four years that he never thought about him when he didn’t think it was necessary. He’s never even realized the danger he’s put his father through. The Stilinski name would never recover, but he’s never thought about it beyond himself.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles blinks, not meeting her eyes. “I- sorry,” he sighs, feeling the sudden urge to apologize for dropping all of this on her shoulders, for making her feel worse for making a selfish action, an action he’s been making all along.

“It’s fine,” she says, patting his shoulder. “Really, I’m glad to see someone still has my back.” Stiles looks up at her then, and smiles softly at her, something that she returns as they start walking again at a slower pace. “What did you bring him?” she asks, breaking the silence between them.

“You,” he says, and he doesn’t look but he knows Allison is smiling that toothy grin. He smiles despite himself as they reach the bottom of the last hill, the facility just at the top through the bushes up there. He can see the roof of part of the facility over the tops of the trees, just barely visible as the wind pushes the branches away to reveal it before they snap back again.

“You really walk this every day?” Allison asks, panting slightly, as they climb up the hill. Stiles wonders if she’s humouring him just to make him feel better, even if it should be the opposite way around. Stiles feels a burning in his lungs all the same, his throat a little dry from all the exercise.

“Not every day, but it helps with lacrosse.” Allison snorts.

“Yeah, if you were on the team,” she teases him as they come to the top, and when she turns to him she’s not wearing the playful smirk he thought she would, but instead a very nervous face, her forehead creased with worry.

“You ready?” he asks. She nods her head, looking at the bushes in front of her, the only thing separating her from Scott. Well, there’s the electric fence, too, but they’re not going to get into semantics. Stiles comes to edge of the bushes, sighing out a long breath.

“You nervous?” she asks him, and when he looks over his shoulder at her she _is_ wearing that playful smirk.

“A little,” he answers her honestly. She rolls her eyes, flicking her hair out of her face as she pushes him forward.

“Go,” she laughs.

“Okay, I’m going, jeez,” he finally begins walking, nudging branches out of his way as he walks, holding them back longer than necessary so they don’t fling back and hit Allison square in the face. He’s careful not to press too hard on them, the nettles already digging into the skin of his palms. He can hear Allison walking closely behind, her toes scraping against his heel at times.

She whispers her apologies, Stiles nodding along. He gets that she’s probably in a rush, they’ve all been anticipating this moment for a while now. Stiles is honestly surprised it’s taken this long, he half expected Scott to go all ‘Shawshank Redemption’ on this prison’s ass just to go see her. God knows Scott would do it.

He glances over his shoulder when it goes quiet behind him, only now noticing that Allison stopped walking a few steps back. She juts her chin out, urging him onward, and he continues without a word. The gaps between the branches reveal the wall of the facility, and a little to the right he can barely make out Scott sitting by the fence in his usual spot.

He smiles, looks back over his shoulder where Allison still hasn’t moved, her face hopeful, and edges forward, pushing the last branch away and stepping out into the open. He blinks in the bright sun, his eyes adjusting as Scott comes to a stand- only Scott looks very different today.

That’s not Scott. Fuck.

Stiles stills with the realization. This man is taller, bulkier, his hair is shorter and black. His eyebrows are thick, and his sharp jaw is peppered with facial hair, the hairs short. The man comes to a stand, wary eyes closing in on him.

“Shit,” is all Stiles says, frozen in place, telling his legs to move. The man comes closer to the fence, just a step, but it’s enough to make Stiles finally step backwards to the edge of the bushes.

“You,” the man calls, his voice soft but hoarse, nothing like he would have assumed it would sound like, and Stiles stills again.

“No, no ‘me’,” he laughs awkwardly, lifting his palms up in defence and then pointing in the direction he came. “I’m just- I’m gonna go now, you didn’t see me, okay? Cool,” he goes to take another step backwards, instead colliding with another body that nudges him forward again.

“Hey, what’s-” Allison cuts herself off when her eyes land on Derek, and she seems to catch up pretty quickly because she’s suddenly tugging on Stiles elbow and pulling them both back through the branches. “Oh, we’re sorry,” she says stiffly, “We’re lost, and just looking for- um, yeah.”

The guy’s face goes panicked, and then, “You’re McCall’s friends, aren’t you?” They both stop as soon as the words are out. Stiles’ heart races in his chest, his mouth gaping and forming no words, any coherent sentence lost on his tongue.

“Yes,” Allison answers, her voice unsure, and it’s only when she speaks that Stiles realizes that he’s just been standing there staring at the guy with his mouth hanging open. He straightens himself immediately, coughing away the lump in his throat. The guy hums, nodding, and then he’s beckoning Stiles over, wagging his index finger in a _come here_ gesture.

Stiles looks over his shoulder at Allison, who’s gently urging him forward with her hands on his back. He silently pleads with her, and yeah, he’s totally scared of the big, scary guy and his whole psycho killer look he’s got going. He is kind of hot, though, and familiar if his eyes aren’t betraying him.

Stiles swallows as he stands before the other man, slightly less scared now that he knows he’s only slightly shorter than him. His eyes are piercing, and Stiles can’t help but wonder why he’s here and not Scott. _Why was he asking if they were McCall’s buddies?_ Something must have happened, Allison could have been right.

“Where’s Scott? Did something happen?” he voice wavers, wide, pleading eyes staring into the other man’s for confirmation. His eyes are sad, tired, frustrated even, and black rings circle them. They dip down before meeting Stiles’ again, his green eyes piercing. There’s something there, something manic, and it almost knocks the wind out of Stiles. “What did you do?” he asks lowly, and this time his voice doesn’t waver.

He laughs, just a huff of air and a small curl to his lips. He throws his eyes to the sky in a _Lord, give me patience_ manner, settling down with an angry smirk. “More like what have _you_ done?” Stiles’ brow furrows, but on some level he already knows what Derek’s talking about.

“What happened?” he asks, searching the guy’s fixed eyes for an answer, but he just shakes his head, steps even closer to the fence, a movement that has Stiles almost taking a step back.

“He’s in trouble,” he says, and Stiles’ breath hitches on the last word, his heartbeat skyrocketing in his chest as he processes it. He hears Allison approach, and she stops behind him, a little ways away from the fence.

“What kind of trouble?” she asks, her tone emotionless. “Is he okay?” The guy doesn’t take his eyes away from Stiles’, not even when he responds to her, like he’s still aiming his words at Stiles, who’s breathing heavily.

“I don’t know,” is all he says, and Stiles’ thoughts are too busy clouding with horrific thoughts of Scott dying, of Stiles being responsible.

“What are they doing to him? Where is he?” Allison tries again, her mask slipping as her words become more rushed, more frantic. All Stiles can think about is how scared Scott must feel, how today was his chance to see Allison and- and Stiles ruined it. If he’s alive.

“I don’t know,” he repeats, drawing Stiles attention again.

“Well, what do you know?” Stiles yells, definitely louder than he should have, and the tears gathering in his eyes are threatening to spill when Derek opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. His expression goes from angry to resolved, and before Stiles can register it, Derek is turning away. Allison steps closer, now in his view as she halts just on the edge of the wire.

“I know that if you’re smart, you won’t come back here. Maybe if you do you won’t cause any more damage.” With that he’s gone, and all Stiles can do is stand there and watch him go as a tear rolls down his cheek.

::: :::

“Well what _do_ you know?” the kid yells, and Derek barely contains the wince at how loud and how desperate he sounds. The girl beside him doesn’t look any more well off than he does. He almost bites back a response to tell him to keep his mouth shut, quickly closing his mouth when he takes a good look at the kid’s face, tears welling up in his eyes, an angry furrow to his eyebrows and a hurt frown.

It’s not the face of somebody who purposefully set out to do any harm.

The anger in Derek dissolves into something calmer, something like understanding, especially when Stiles’ words sink in, because the truth is, Derek knows nothing, and that terrifies him more than the facility itself. He turns away resigned, pausing after the first step.

“I know that if you’re smart, you won’t come back here.” Because if there’s one thing Derek _does_ know, it’s that this place isn’t somewhere anyone should willingly approach. Not unless you’ve got a death wish. He rounds the wall without looking back, and once he does, he crumples back against it.

His chest is heaving, and he dips his head back against the concrete as he exhales long and slow, steadying his breathing. He stares up at the sky, closing his eyes as he calms down. When he opens his eyes again, there are guards still patrolling the walls and doors, and inmates in the yard carrying on as normal.

It was too still, to the point where Derek was almost wondering if what happened had happened at all. He knows it _did_ happen, he came face to face with humans that didn’t seem to fit Derek’s perception at all. Derek doesn’t know how to describe them, innocent maybe. Nothing like the ignorance and small-mindedness he’s come to associate with humans over the years.

Who even were they? Scott’s friends obviously, which means that they’re probably still in school, Scott was only a freshman when he came here which means that they’re seniors, probably no more than seventeen or eighteen. What kind of teenager comes up with a system to get here, he’s seen the security this place has. He knows there’s patrols, too. They’re obviously smart enough to not get caught.

He’s still angry, though. The fact that they were treating this place like some holiday resort has gotten Isaac in trouble. But maybe it wasn’t entirely their fault, and maybe he shouldn’t be taking his anger out on them when it’s obvious that it should be directed at Scott. Now that he thinks about it, he never actually told them what happened, and he supposes they deserve that much. To know.

But the guard lining the wall is eyeing him dubiously from across the way so he stands straight and moves away, not wanting to draw attention to himself or the spot. He’ll come back tomorrow, he’s sure they’ll keep coming back anyway. His threats don’t hold much power anymore now that there’s an electric fence holding him back.

He looks around for Boyd, hasn’t seen him all day, but he seems to have disappeared since the last time he saw him while walking to the fence earlier. He assumes he’s with Erica, because when are they ever separated? They’re probably in one of the cells, and if Boyd had to go find Erica then they’re probably in Isaac’s

He doesn’t particularly want to go back there, but he begins walking in that direction anyway. He can’t help but look back as people stare after him in the yard, and in the halls and in the canteen, and this time they don’t even have the decency to quickly look away when their eyes meet. There are even more eyes on him now than there were when he left, but he pushes onward without sparing a second glance.

When he rounds the corner to the hallway of Isaac’s room, he’s not surprised to see Boyd there, but is surprised to find Boyd only standing in the doorway. He approaches, and Boyd must catch him in the corner of his eye because he stands aside, turning to him with a small smile on his face that Derek has always found creepy.

Derek quirks a curious eyebrow at him and Boyd just happily gestures for him to look in the room, and he follows the movement to see Erica still sitting on Isaac’s bed, although she’s perched on the edge next to another person. Isaac.

In the rush of seeing him, he darts through the door, pausing when the motion attracts their attention. He freezes mid-step when Isaac’s eyes land on him, and Isaac quickly stands so they’re both facing each other, but neither of them speaks. He steps back, waiting on Isaac to make the next move.

He failed Isaac yesterday, only now realizing how much when he takes in the state that he’s in. Derek’s eyes rake over his body, his dishevelled hair and clothes wrinkled and torn in areas. He’s lifting his left foot so it’s just hovering over the floor, probably hurt, and the dark circles around his eyes make him look exhausted.

It’s the bruise on his upper left cheek that draws his attention the most, puffy and an angry purple with different shades of greens and yellows. He has other bruises, too, but not as prominent. The hurt and upset look Isaac’s face make Derek hurt just as much, but before he can either get a word into his apology Isaac is limping over and colliding into Derek with a force that probably hurt him.

Derek wraps his arms around him on impulse, holding him tight and burying his face into Isaac’s hair where he’s resting his head on Derek’s shoulder. He exhales sharply, breathing out a relieved sigh without even realizing he was holding his breath. He doesn’t miss Isaac’s choked off sob, and it only makes Derek hold on to Isaac tighter, like Derek is the one that needs support.

“You’re okay,” he whispers, eyes catching Erica looking up at him. They hold the stare for a moment before she’s standing up and leaving with a soft smile. She puts her hand on Isaac’s shoulder as she goes before wordlessly leaving. “You’re okay,” he says again, because he needs to hear just as much as Isaac. He’s okay.

His eyes travel to the other side of the room, to the empty bed sitting in the corner with no sign of anyone having returned to it. He immediately pulls back, and regrets it when Isaac flinches with the sudden movement. “McCall?” Isaac swallows before answering, shaking his head with his eyes downcast on the floor.

“No,” he says quietly. Derek doesn’t push further, doesn’t know what to say, really. He knows Scott and Isaac are close, and he knows it’s the only reason Isaac didn’t turn him in. He has to admit that he does feel a little sympathy for him, and even his friends, because tomorrow he has to go back there and explain why their friend might be dead.

He pushes all of those thought away though, saves them for later. He’ll deal with it tomorrow, but for now, he just pulls Isaac back in, pushes his nose back into his hair and breathes in his soothing scent, hoping that the faint smell Isaac can get from him is enough to do the same. He’s safe.

Well, as safe as you can be in a place like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment and let me know what you think! As always you can find me on tumblr at t-g-i-sterek. I've also started a new series 'I Would Put U and I Together', so can check that out, too. This fic is looking to be pretty long, and after it I'll probably go back and re-write and then continue with 'The Mortise to my Tenon'. Chapter 3 should be out around December 18th or so :)


	3. Protocol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! What better early Christmas present could there be than a new chapter, right? RIGHT? Anyways, it's about a week later than I expected, I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting. Also, it's officially my longest running fic, because I kinda give up on them usually. Not this one though....
> 
> Enjoy!

Stile trudges through the woods alone this time, nothing filling the silence but the sound of the ground under his feet and woodland animals around him. He doesn’t register the puddle of water in his path until he walks right into it. He groans, pulling his foot out, which is now caked in mud and that’s great. _Great_.

He considers grabbing a leaf from a nearby bush to wipe the excess mud off, but he just sighs and continues onward instead. It’s chillier today, although the sun is shining and that makes Stiles wonder if the coldness inside him is what’s causing goose bumps on his arm or the actual weather.

Scott wasn’t there. He wasn’t there and he was in danger and it’s all his fault. He feels helpless, even more so than usual. He’s worried that Scott’s not going to be there again, and nervous because Scott _might be_ there again. He’s almost afraid of knowing, of what he might find, but also afraid of what he might _now_ find.

He’s also afraid of the guy. The one that was there yesterday. He wonders if Derek’s going to be there again, maybe he might rub the fact that Stiles fucked up in his face some more. Stiles still can’t pin where he’s seen that face before, but he knows it’s familiar. He doesn’t dwell on it though, hadn’t even thought about it again until now.

No, he was too busy trying to rid his words out of his brain. He didn’t sleep last night, and it probably explains why he’s been so moody today, but that could also be just a reflex for being so frustrated with himself and with Scott. Over Scott. He tossed and turned all night, all the while wondering what the hell happened and if Scott was dead or alive.

He didn’t go to school today, couldn’t face Allison knowing that Scott was in trouble and it was his fault. He avoided her calls all day and didn’t answer the door when she called around after school. He hopes that by some miracle she didn’t notice the big, blue jeep she had to pass to get to the front door and thought he wasn’t home.

She knows he was, and he knows she does. Lydia didn’t say a word about it during the ride up here, and he figured that she was pointedly not mentioning Allison with the amount of consideration she was putting into her words when describing her day. At one point it looked as though she was going to tell a funny story that he missed at school and then stopped. Allison must have been involved.

She still told him to tell Scott that she was asking for him when she was dropping him off, but her heart wasn’t in it and he could read it all over her face. Allison must have told her because God knows he hasn’t said a word to her since they arrived at the fence. He didn’t even say anything in the car, and neither did Allison. Lydia didn’t push to ask what was wrong, but he knew she could tell.

So yeah, he didn’t handle the idea that he might have gotten his best friend killed very well. Figures. He shut Allison out and went home without a word, not even a goodbye. He pretended not to hear his father in the living room watching ‘Married… With Children’ and silently went straight to his room and crawled into bed, not getting out of it until about an hour ago.

That’s when he ate, took a shower and waited for Lydia to arrive, thankfully without Allison, and brought him here. Here, as it turns out, is right in front of the bushes that separate the forest from the facility. He hadn’t even realized he was close, never mind twenty feet away. He considers turning back for a brief moment, but decides against it because if Scott’s there he’s going to want somebody there with him.

He takes one steadying breath before pushing forward, not realizing just how slow he’s walking, just to prolong the bliss that is ignorance. His heart sinks when he gets to the edge of the bushes on the other side, through the branches he can see a figure, but it’s enough to see that it’s not Scott, but the other guy.

::: :::

Derek hears him rather than sees him, and he suspects that the kid doesn’t actually realize just how loud he is. An amused smile curls his lips. “You know your hoodie isn’t exactly subtle,” he calls to the figure watching him from the bushes not ten feet away. He hears a faint ‘crap’, before the kid is standing before him. Of course, he’s referring to the fact that the kid is wearing a bright red hoodie while walking through the woods in daylight.

He doesn’t say anything as he approaches the fence, and Derek silently watches him from where he’s sitting in the grass, his back to the wall. He squints up at the boy’s face, whose looking adorably determined with his creased baby face, a frustrated curl to his lips.

“Where’s Scott?” he demands in a no bull shit attitude.

“Sit down,” Derek says after a moment’s pause. The kid looks down at the ground and then back up at Derek without making a move to do as Derek suggested. He can tell the kid is reluctant, and definitely a pain in the ass. Stubborn.

He does sit down though, matches Derek pose of crossing his legs and looks Derek square in the eye. Derek tries not to look too smug about it, this is pretty serious after all, and he should probably take it easy on the kid for both their sakes. “Tell me what happened,” he says, when he comes to the conclusion that Derek probably still hasn’t learned where Scott is since the last time they spoke.

“There was accident a couple of days ago,” and Derek continues when the guy’s face crumples with how that sounded. “Scott wasn’t involved, but there was room search ordered and they found everything Scott had been hiding. He and his roommate were caught and taken away.”

“Isaac,” he says faintly, staring down at the ground. For some reason he didn’t think Scott had mentioned Isaac, but he supposes that that’s perfectly understandable that he had. He wonders just how much Scott told him and how much he knows about what they really are. This isn’t exactly a prison for werewolves as far as the public are aware. “And you haven’t heard from them?” he asks hopefully, and this is where it gets complicated.

“Not exactly,” he answers honestly, and that has him lifting his head back up again with raised eyebrows. Derek almost doesn’t want to crush the look on his face.

“I don’t know what that means,” he shakes his head, urging him to continue. Derek sighs, considering his words, but the boy just seems to grow impatient the longer he takes.

“Isaac came back yesterday evening.”

“Oh,” he says, although it didn’t sound as hurt as Derek had anticipated. “That means there’s hope right? That Scott will come back, too.” He’s nodding his head like it’s a silent plea for Derek to say yes, to just go along with it even if there’s no hope and Derek knows he won’t be. Derek almost does, but shakes his head again.

“Isaac didn’t actually do anything wrong. He wasn’t the one that was sneaking prohibited items into their room. Isaac just happened to share a room with somebody that did and got caught up in the mess.” The hopeful look on the kid’s face doesn’t seem to have been deterred, so Derek doesn’t continue for fear that the kid’s heart will break right there in front of him.

A silence falls between them, the boy opposite him just pulling blade of grass out of the ground and then disposing of them almost as soon as he picked them up.

“The camera is off, by the way,” he says a while later, breaking the silence as he points up to the camera on the wall facing them. “Just in case you were wondering.” He was, actually, but his tone makes him sound disinterested. “I know one of the operators, he’s been helping me out.” He doesn’t know if he’s boasting about it or just needing a way to fill the silence. Derek was just about to get up and leave before he spoke, and the kid could leave whenever he wants, so he’ll go with the former.

“It sounds like it’s quite an elaborate scheme you’ve got going on,” Derek goes along with it. He smiles minutely, one hand of his elbows resting on his crossed leg as his cheek rests against his palm. He looks tired, like he could topple over any second now.

“Thanks,” he says. Just when Derek thinks he’s not going to continue speaking he does. “There’s a girl, Lydia, she drives me up to the edge of the forest and I go on foot from there.”

“She was with you yesterday,” he says, but he just shakes his head in response.

“No, that was Allison. She couldn’t come today.” His tone changes then, from bored to sad, but Derek doesn’t ask, doesn’t particularly want to know. The only reason he’s still here is to humour the kid. “It’s Lydia that’s the driver, she waits for an hour before coming back to pick me up.” Derek realizes then that he’s not actually boasting but just really needs something to talk about to pass the time.

Derek settles in instead of being on the verge of leaving all the time, and he seems to notice but doesn’t say anything. He looks tired and lonely and Derek knows exactly what he’s feeling, he’s felt it for four years.

“Have you been doing this for four years?” Derek asks, and the boy perks up again. He nods, but doesn’t say anything further. Well, that’s the first and last time Derek will ever try and strike up a conversation. Another stretch of silence begins, and it lasts a few minutes before he starts talking again.

“Hey, what’s your name?” he asks, and Derek stiffens, looking like a deer caught in headlights. The pauses continues for such a long time that it just gets awkward and the kid rolls his eyes. He’s not sure if he should be giving away that kind of information, after all, he doesn’t know this kid and he could just be a hunter testing him. He wouldn’t put it passed them, any excuse to put a bullet in one of them.

“I’m Stiles,” he says, putting his palm flat against his chest. Stiles gives him an expectant look when Derek opens his mouth.

“What kind of a name is Stiles?” he asks, and Stiles deflates, throwing a limp hand at him in a ‘ _forget it’_ gesture. He doesn’t know why he does it, but he does anyway.

“Derek.” The kid- Stiles, looks back up at him. “What?”

“My name is Derek.” Stiles gives him a calculating look before shrugging, and Derek only realizes that Stiles brought a backpack with him when he pulls it around in front of him an unzips it to pull out a plastic lunch box.

Derek knows what’s in it before Stiles even finishes lifting off the lid. Even now he still recognizes the delicious smell, he hasn’t had apple pie this good since his mo- in a very long time, is all. Stiles wraps the large end in a piece of tissue, and Derek can’t seem to take his eyes off the slice in Stiles’ long, slender fingers.

Stiles nudges it toward the fence in offering. Derek considers it, and he knows how hypocritical it is to take this, but knows how amazing it would taste if he just went ahead and took it. One more intake of apple pie-filled air has his mouth watering in anticipation.

But Stiles seems to acknowledge Derek’s inward battle, rolls his eyes and reaches through the fence. Derek takes a sharp intake of air as he watches Stiles do it, still in disbelief that anyone would even dare to put a finger across the border, before Stiles is wrapping Derek’s own fingers around the slice before retreating carefully.

And Derek doesn’t even stop him, just watches and allows him without snapping or flinching away from the physical contact. He eyes the slice dubiously, and the thought that Stiles might not even be McCall’s friend but an untrustworthy stranger is still lingering in the back of his head. It could be poison, it could laced with mountain ash, he shouldn’t even be-

“Just eat it, you idiot,” he huffs, looking very disappointed in him. Derek eyes it briefly one more time before shrugging and reluctantly bites the tip. He’s hardly closed his mouth around it when a moan escapes his mouth involuntarily, but he’s too busy floating on air to even feel slightly humiliated with himself.

The moan that comes after that comes out longer this time, more luxurious, and he closes his eyes in ecstasy just as Stiles’ cheeks flare a hot red. “This is amazing,” he mumbles, crumbs spewing from his mouth. Stiles swallows and nods quickly.

“I know, right?” he says hoarsely, coughing afterwards to clear his throat and dips his gaze to the floor. Derek leans back more comfortably against the wall savouring the last mouthful as the flavours dance on his tongue. He sighs after, opens his eyes to meet Stiles’ flushed, hard stare.

He’s starting to understand the appeal of coming here every day, and finds that any judgement he had been feeling over Scott has vanished. Well, except for the fact that he was stupid enough to bring things in with him and put Isaac’s life in danger.

No, there’s definitely judgement on that front, but as Derek catches Stiles’ eyes, he thinks that eating a poisoned apple pie is a death to be desired in this place.

::: :::

Stiles wouldn’t say he had a comfortable sleep. No, it was the opposite in fact. And that being said he had barely slept at all. He spent the majority of his time in bed worrying over Scott, about how he hadn’t shown up and how he might be dead and that opened a whole other can of worms that Stiles isn’t even going to think about now, because honestly, being on the verge of a panic attack once in the last twelve hours is enough, thank you.

Not to mention all of the guilt he feels, about Scott and for Allison, and for how he basically led her along and cock-blocked in the most superior of ways. Oh, and of course, what he’s going to say to her in school today, how he’s going to apologize and excuse his ignoring her yesterday, and that’s if she’s even still talking to him, which he’s almost certainly sure she isn’t.

And then that led to Derek and whoever the fuck he is, and that’s when Stiles realizes that Stiles doesn’t know shit about the guy, it’s not like ‘Derek’ rang any bells anyway. And then there’s how Derek even knew who Stiles was, because he’s almost a thousand percent sure they made a pact not to tell anybody.

Well, apart from Lydia and Allison (because they kind of need to know), and Jackson only knows by association with Lydia, because which of his secrets has she _not_ told him. Like, surely Scott could keep it a secret from some fucking random guy if Stiles has to keep it from Scott’s mother to keep her safe and _hello_ , Stiles’ father.

And by the time those thoughts came around it already way past four am and even his brain was getting sick of listening to him so he did his best to just get rid of his mother’s disappointed face looking at him, because let’s be real here, she’d totally be judging him if she was still around. And then that led to thoughts of his mother, and as the world can probably guess, he’s not very fond of those thoughts, either.

So basically, his night was a cluster-fuck of awful memories, guilt, panic attacks, and shittiness all round. Which is why when his alarm goes off he almost considers taking another sick day and avoiding all of his problems for another twenty four hours all together. He’s a fan of ignoring the problem until it goes away.

He needs his Adderall, because damn, that was a lot of shit to think of in thirty seconds.

Stiles whines to the obnoxiously loud sound of his alarm, slapping his hand around the bedside locker until it eventually falls off the side, still alarming the fuck out of him. He pouts, rolling along the bed until he gets to the very edge and throws his hand down. It falls quiet, and he ends up lying there, embracing the last minute that he has in his nice, warm bed before getting up.

He eventually stands, almost falling in his tired-drunk state as he hobbles straight to the bathroom to pee, his eyes still droopy and mostly shut. He takes a shower and dresses himself, still hunched over and walking like a zombie, still not fully awake. He can already tell that today is going to be a joy.

He’s had the night and morning from hell, and it can only go downhill from here…

“You’re avoiding her,” Lydia remarks. Stiles closes his eyes, asks for patience. Not out loud obviously, he likes not having a red heel stuck up his ass. He can picture the sass in Lydia’s stance behind him, book in one arm resting against her tilted hip, hand resting on the other side.

“M’not,” he says, closing the door to his locker and immediately looking to his right. Lydia sighs behind him, Stiles pretends not to hear.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you making sure she’s not standing at her locker right now?” Stiles contains his wince, turns his head away from Allison’s thankfully unattended locker, and instead begins walking to his left, the sound of Lydia’s relentless heels clapping the ground behind him.

He could out-walk her right now. Her legs are short and she’s wearing heels. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea, he’s faced the ginger fury before and it wasn’t exactly a joyous experience that he wants to live through again.

Plus, Lydia could run a marathon in heels.

“She told me what happened, by the way. Oh, and thanks for the information, jackass.” Stiles slows, an inquisitive yet confused look on his face.

“I’m not your boyfriend. Oh wait, no, that’s Jack _son_. I get mixed up sometimes,” he shrugs. Lydia smiles falsely at him.

“Cute,” she curls her lip. “Save the foreplay for when he’s _actually_ around.” Stiles winks at her, and she breaks eye contact with him.

“So when _is_ Jackson going to grace us with his presence?” he drawls, trying not to say anything too negative considering the little pact of allegiance they’ve agreed to in sophomore year.

“Whenever you stop trying to change the subject.” Stiles almost comes to a halt, but manages to keep to the same pace down the hall.

“When did I start?” Lydia tilts her head, eyes on the ceiling as she feigns deep thought.

“Well, there was that time ten minutes ago when you redirected the conversation to my hair colour. Remember? You asked if I had changed it even though we both know you’ve paid enough attention to it since third grade that it’s practically ingrained into your brain.”

“I vaguely remember that. Name another time.”

“Oh. There was that time when you were doing right now.” Stiles snorts, but the look on Lydia’s face tells him she doesn’t find it so funny.

“Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’. Lydia puts a hand on his elbow, a move that would have floored him three years ago. They come to a halt, and the look of sincerity on her face nearly has him cracking like concrete under a jackhammer.

She’s about as powerful as one.

“It’s okay, you know,” she says, her thumb brushing against his skin. He barely has time to think of a response to that before the morning bell gives him the perfect escape.

“Oh,” he winces, moving to walk away. “Would you look at that? We’re out of time, it was fun speaking to you, though!” he calls dramatically, escaping into the first classroom he sees.

“You can’t hide forever, Stilinski!” he hears her call over the crowd of students rushing the hall. He lets out a sigh of relief as he leans back against the closed door. It’s the sound of Harris’ shrill voice that has him opening them again.

“Nice of you to join us, Stilinski. I’m glad you decided to take full advantage of the extra morning classes I’ve been holding.” He turns to the rest of the class, who are staring back at him from their seats.

He pretends not to notice Allison sitting somewhere in the middle, and ignores the ‘God knows you need them’ that Harris utters under his breath as he walks. That would explain why she wasn’t around this morning, then.

So much for keeping a low profile and avoiding her, as previously planned this morning. He can feel the judgment in the air as he takes a seat at the back instead of his usual one next to Allison. He knows it looks like he’s being a dick. Maybe he is being a dick, he just can’t find it in him to care. So he starts again on the whole keeping his head down thing and takes his notes like a good student.

By the time lunch rolls around on the clock he’s managed to up the amount of people he’s avoiding to a whopping three people. After what was arguably a jaw-dropping display of teaching by Harris he was practically sprinting out the door in such a fashion that even Finstock would have been proud.

And would have probably yelled a lot about Stiles lacking in fitness when running track. You win some, you lose some.

And then there’s Lydia, who he managed to outrun in the hall earlier that day despite the consequences he will no doubt face later. She was even calling his name from down the hall. That’ll earn him an extra kick to the balls later when she finally catches up to him.

And then there’s Jackson because, well, he’s Jackson and Stiles tends to avoid him every day. At this rate he’ll be hiding from half the school by dinner time.

It’s when he’s bypassing the cafeteria at lunch that he actually _does_ bump into Jackson. And when there’s Jackson there’s usually a five foot fiery demon in tow. In what was no doubt a stunning display of maturity, she flicked him four times on the forehead and yelled ‘Get your goddamn head out of your ass!’

She even first named him. That’s when he knew he was really in trouble. On the bright side his balls are still in-tact and the entire situation is fixable. The bright side is still very dull, apparently. So dull that he ended up in the library during lunch, having made his way there after Lydia stomped off and Jackson hissed unsympathetically in sympathy.

There’s a reason Stiles thinks he’s a jackass. He is found later on though, in what Stiles would like to call an ambush.

“You look tired,” Allison comments, sitting next to him on the bleachers. Okay, so not quite an ambush.

“I am tired,” is all he says in reply.

“Me too.” Stiles nods, eyes fixed at his fumbling hands. It’s a little chili outside, he should invest in a heavier hoodie, a pair of gloves maybe. “Did you sleep?”

“Nope,” he says honestly. “Not since Scott left.” _Disappeared_ , he wanted to say.

“He still hasn’t come back?” He shakes his head as an answer, doesn’t know how to explain to her in words that Scott still hasn’t been seen at all, or that he’s in contact with some stranger. A story for a different day maybe. “Do you think he’s going to?”

Stiles doesn’t answer her, instead looks at her for the first time since she sat down. She looks about as tired as he feels, and he wonders if she’s slept any more than he has. “He’ll be back.” Not because he believes it, or that he wants to believe it, but because he _has_ to believe. He has to believe that Scott will be there waiting for him later. Otherwise he might lose his freaking mind.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, doesn’t meet her eyes but he means it in every sense of the word. Sorry for avoiding her, sorry for getting her hopes up and sorry for knocking them back down again. Sorry for Scott. And not just for what happened with him the other day, but for what he did four years ago. “If I hadn’t dragged him-“

“Don’t,” she says, and the word hits him with such force that the rest of the sentence just falls off his tongue. He doesn’t mention that day again, and neither does she.

“I’m going back later,” he changes the subject. Something tells him she was about to do the same. It’s hardly news to her anyway. She doesn’t respond, it’s not really up for discussion anyway. They both know he’ll go regardless of what he expects to happen. He knows she’s not coming back with him, he figures it’s a conversation left undiscussed.

A cool breeze sends shivers down his spine, and when he curls in on himself for warmth Allison stands from her seat.

“Come on,” she urges. “Let’s get inside its freezing.” Stiles looks up at her and nods as she begins to walk, and he takes the stairs two steps at a time to catch up to her.

“You know, I think Finstock is finally starting to acknowledge me,” he says, a sudden light-hearted shift in the conversation. Allison looks over to where Finstock is giving it loads to one of Stiles’ teammates that he’s never bothered to learn the name of, not even noticing Stiles leave practise early.

“Mhm,” she hums, a mischievous grin on her face. Stiles scrunches his nose at her, shoves her shoulder softly and she laughs. He loves her laugh, even if he rarely hears it these days. “That why you’ve been sitting on the bench the last twenty minutes?”

“Shut up. Stalker,” he mutters, not even the slightest bit offended. It’s senior year and he’s going to make it to first line by the last game if it’s the last thing he ever does.

::: :::

Derek makes sure to shut the cell door when he changes. He doesn’t trust himself to not get killed while he’s blinded by the fabric of his shirt when he pulls it over his head. Although he doesn’t know if it’s a lack of trust in himself or a lack of trust in others.

He trusts neither anyway.

It’s hard to put faith in anybody in here, including himself. Someone’s always bound to let you down, or get killed, or get _you_ killed. It’s happened enough in the last few days. He finds himself leaving the cell, eyes glancing over to Greenberg’s cell where a new door still has to be fitted.

He wonders how long it’ll be before the cell is filled. If he had money, he’d put it on the end of the week. He supposes it’s the only faith you can have here, you can always have faith that the worst is yet to come.

It’s not the only perfect example of what he’s just said. Yes, Greenberg let everybody down, got himself killed and killed Jared in the process. As he passes Isaac’s thankfully empty cell, he can’t help but blame him a little for what happened with him and McCall.

Isaac had faith. He had faith in McCall to not let him down, to not get killed, to not get Isaac himself killed. And it’s exactly what McCall did, because Derek’s nothing if not honest, McCall is dead. They all know it, even Stiles must know it. Erica and Boyd the same, the only reason nobody’s said it out loud is for Isaac’s benefit.

Isaac is learning about the cold, harsh reality of this place.

And he looks at himself, for having trust Isaac. When Isaac left, Derek nearly went out of his mind. And now that he’s back, Derek doesn’t trust himself to get close to him anymore. Because Derek trusts far too easily, and it’s a habit that got him in here in the first place. The only time Derek _doesn’t_ trust people is when it actually matters.

And he knows, better than anybody, that the hunters aren’t the only monsters in this place, because it’s not what you are that makes you a monster, it’s who you are. And some people are just monstrous people. Take Aiden for example, who he sees seated at a table when he passes through the canteen.

And it’s not just Aiden, it’s the whole pack. Bar Ethan, of course. They’re a bunch of loose canons on the brink of firing, and Derek can say that he trusts his judgement enough to know that it won’t end well for any of them. He’s watched them, for the past year or so, just watched from a distance as the cracks formed.

They’re not who they were a year ago, and he’s seen some of the shit they’ve pulled when they were stable, but now, when they’re on the verge of a meltdown, he can’t imagine what’s coming his way. It always comes his way.

And when he passes Satomi in the corridor, they don’t speak. They don’t make eye contact, neither of them acknowledge the other. She’s an old family friend, he remembers her from when he was just a child. She doesn’t look like she’s aged a day, from what he can remember. He should trust her, like his mother did, but then again his mother was always put far too much faith in others, even hunters.

Just another reason why he’s here, he supposes, but pushes any thought of it away as he enters the counsellor’s room.

::: :::

“You know, I was just thinking,” Derek says, catching Morrell’s undivided attention. She’s been staring at him in silence for the last fifteen minutes with her notepad resting on her folded arms. She never takes notes. He wonders if she uses it as a barrier between them, a shield to symbolise who’s really in control here.

She nods her head. She never speaks first, and Derek wonders if it’s a power thing. That she knows he’ll speak first, that he’ll break before she does. “I was just wondering why it is that you’re here.”

“Excuse me?” she asks, without a single change in her calm expression. It’s almost eerie.

“I was just thinking why it is that you’re here.  The psychiatrists, as you call yourselves. What are you here for?” She takes a moment to respond like they both don’t already know the answer.

“Protocol. Why do you think _you_ are here, Derek?” Derek smiles at her answer, so predetermined and rehearsed.

“I was just about to ask you the same question.” Her tone is calm when she speaks, the mask on her face still standing strong.

“Why don’t we leave the question asking to me?” she says, eyes meeting his and never wavering. “Why do you think _you’re_ here?”

“You’ve already asked me that question. Did you know it was the first thing you said to me?” He wonders what it says about him that he remembers something so insignificant from four years back. Maybe it’s because the answer is what stayed with him.

“Answer again.” He wonders if she even remembers his answer, if she remembers his face from so long ago, in the moment he realized what the world thought of him. He wonders if she’s hoping for a change in opinion.

“Because I’m a monster,” he answers automatically, like the answer has been drilled into his head so much that even he believes it. She seems to consider him, but he knows it’s all for show.

“You don’t believe that, do you?” Derek lifts his gaze to meet hers.

“Do _you_?” he snipes, and when he realizes she’s not going to answer he sighs, dropping his gaze back to the floor. “No. I don’t believe it.”

“Why?”

“Do monsters have nightmares?” he lifts his gaze again, looks her dead in the eye and waits for a response. She hasn’t moved since he sat down twenty minutes ago, and he wonders if her eyes have left his the entire time. She knows how to play the game, maybe the problem is that she knows it too well.

“You’re having nightmares again,” she responds in lieu of an actual answer. It’s usually how she works, a question for a question. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Derek only nods. “Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know. You tell me,” he hunches forward, arms folded and resting against his knees as he sits. “You’re the psychiatrist.” His leg bounces as he waits for a response.

“Acceptance.” Derek snorts, sitting straight again and resting his head against the back of the chair. He nods his head and smiles at the ceiling.

“Hate to break it to you, but I accepted this place a _long_ time ago.” It was about three, maybe four months in, when he realized that this was his life now, this is it for him. It made it easier, but also harder at the same time.

“Maybe its peace.”

“In this place?” Derek asks, because there’s no such thing as peace in this place. How on Earth could she possibly have come up with peace?

“You’re referring to the other night, aren’t you? The feral.” Derek hates that word, as much as he’s used it and heard it being used. Like he’s a wild animal. It hits a nerve in him. “Greenberg, no?”

“Yeah,” he says, without pause, because somebody remembered his fucking name.

“It upset you. Shook you.” Derek meets her eyes again. “Scared you.” A bitter smile spreads across Derek’s face. He could almost laugh at her.

“I’m not scared,” he says easily, because he’s not. He wonders if that’s a good or a bad thing.

“Why did it scare you?” she asks, and Derek rubs his eyes tiredly. She’s starting to sound like a broken record, but he doesn’t repay her with a response. “Why did it give you nightmares?” He knows she knows where this is going.

“My uncle.”

“Peter,” she says thoughtlessly, just as Derek knew she would.

“Yeah. It- The same thing happened to him,” he says, but doesn’t clarify.

“Which was?” Derek sighs, rests his chin in his hands as his eyes move to the window, high up the wall. He can see clouds, a hint of blue by the corner of the window.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he tells her, and she quirks an eyebrow at him. It’s the first facial movement she’s made in the entire session.

“Is that so?” she urges him on, and he gets the sense that she’s still in control, that she’ll always be in control no matter what direction he takes the conversation in.

“He turned into a monster.” She looks satisfied with that answer, but doesn’t push on. “A wild, savage, raging beast. That’s what you wanted me to say, right?”

“Why would you say that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” she asks, as collected as ever. Derek barely resists the urge to roll his eyes skyward.

“I don’t think I trust myself to answer that question,” he answers her honestly. He knows _that’s_ true, because he knows himself that the longer he stays here the more he starts to believe it. How could he not?

“You don’t trust many, do you?” Derek jerks his head back to face her, her words unexpected. In hindsight he should have seen it coming, should have chosen his words more carefully. He doesn’t say anything. “You trust me.” It’s not a question, more of a statement, but not smug. She says it like its fact. Its certainly news to Derek.

“Do I?” Because he’s not entirely sure himself. Surely it’s preposterous.

“Why else would you open up to me?” This time Derek does roll his eyes, an unamused smile on his face. She doesn’t seem to find it funny, but there’s a smile on her face regardless, and Derek feels like that smile is one of judgement, or pity even.

“I think ‘open up’ is a bit of a stretch,” he says. A bit too strong of a term for what they do here. He’s never had anything more than a conversation in his eyes, never anything that comes close to opening up. She clears her throat, flicks a stray hair out of her vision. This time her smile does seem amused.

“Your name is Derek Samuel Alan Hale. You’re twenty two years old, born December twenty-fifth, 1993. You’re son of Talia and Daniel Hale, as are Cora, Laura, and your twin brothers, Oscar and Alex. You lived with your uncle Peter, who had two kids, Liam and Malia. You attended Beacon Hills High School, where you were captain of the basketball team. It’s also where you met K-”

“I get it,” he interrupts her, sensing the next part of his life story that she was about to touch on. It’s not something he needs to hear out loud, again apparently. He feels bile rising in the back of his throat at the thought of the name alone, and she only said the first letter.

“You asked me why I’m here, Derek. You gave yourself an answer to that question just now.” Derek can feel his laboured breathing beginning to calm down as she speaks, and he goes almost silent in anticipation for her next few words. “I’m here to study you. In the last ten minutes I’ve come to the conclusion that you are scared. You’re alone. Tired. Restless. Shaken. Wise.”

Derek scoffs at her. “You know what you are, Derek. And to answer your previous question; I do think there are monsters in here.” With that she ends the session, and Derek finds himself outside the room before he even registers that he’s sat up.

He knows what she meant by her words, doesn’t mean he has to believe her.

::: :::

Derek’s tying his laces while kneeling on the ground when Erica strides into his cell, flops onto the bed and sprawls out across it. Derek blinks up at her, her head tilted right to look at him, faces only inches apart.

“Hey handsome,” she winks, and scoffing, he goes back to tying his laces. She peeks down as he busies his hands. “Where ya goin’?”

“A walk,” he lies, but he says it casually enough that she won’t read too much into it. He goes on walks regularly so it’s nothing out of the ordinary. He’d prefer runs, like he used to, but he’ll take what he can get.

She groans, rolling back over on her back to stare up at the ceiling. Derek smirks, anticipating her words and knowing exactly what she’s about to say.

“Ugh, you’re so boring. Why don’t you ever just want to hang out?” Derek quirks an eyebrow up at her, even though she can’t see it.

“You want to hang out?” he asks suspiciously. It’s a bit of a strange situation, if he’s honest with himself. She’s never asked him to _hang out_ before, they’ve barely even conversed up until the other day.

“Yeah. You know, relax, have fun, tell each other secrets,” she drawls. “You are familiar with the concept?” she mocks him.

“Ooh,” he says, rising. “Can we talk about boys and braid each other’s hair?” Erica grins up at him, he likes her like this, its a new side of her.

“Nobody told me you were funny,” she tilts her head, like she’s trying and failing to suss him out. Derek exhales a put-upon sigh.

“Nobody ever believes I want to talk about boys,” he shakes his head, and Erica actually laughs. Derek can’t help but smile back. “I’ve wanted a braid for years.”

“Grow out your beard and I’ll braid it for you. I think the hipster-stoner look would suit you.” Derek hums, zipping up his hoodie. “Go on your walk you old man. I’ll be here when you get back, thinking about boys,” she sighs dreamily, and Derek snorts, because he knows she’ll be thinking about _a_ boy. His name rhymes with Boyd.

It’s when he gets to the exercise yard that his mood turns suddenly less humorous. The sight of Isaac in the distance, on one of the machines makes his chest ache. Half because he hasn’t seen Isaac since the night he got back, mainly due to Derek’s avoidance of him, and half because Isaac never exercises.

He supposes the thing with McCall shook him more than Derek thought it had. He quickly moves away, settling on the idea that he can deal with it later, or tomorrow maybe. He’s usually not one for ignoring the problem until it goes away, and that’s not really what’s happening here anyway. He’s more of a ‘sit back and wait for the problem to find me’ type of guy.

It doesn’t matter now anyway, because he finds himself rounding the wall to the fence without a second thought for Isaac. His thoughts move towards McCall, and how he _still_ hasn’t returned yet. He sits in the grass and leans back against the wall, and waits for Stiles to arrive.

He’s resting his eyes when Stiles does eventually come, and this time he’s wearing a less obvious, green, plaid shirt. He wonders if Stiles wore it on purpose. Derek immediately sits up, and when his eyes meet Stiles, he can practically _feel_ the disappointment in them.

Stiles opens his mouth, closes it, opens it, and Derek hates the look on his face. He doesn’t move away from the threshold of the bush, doesn’t approach the fence, he doesn’t make any move to come closer.

And it’s not until Derek shakes his head that a look of resigned sadness and disappointment washes across his features. He nods, blinking rapidly as he dips his head and turns around, back through the bushes. Derek wordlessly watches him leave, doesn’t even try and explain anything, just lets him leave.

It’s not until Stiles is definitely gone that he stands back up again, and it’s a long while at least before he does. That whole thing was a little strange, Stiles in particular, but he can’t help but feel sorry for him, helpless behind a fence and nothing to do about it.

He feels more sympathy for Stiles in that moment than he does for himself. Shrugging, he rounds the wall again.

He’ll be back tomorrow.

::: :::

“He’ll be there,” Lydia says, for what feels like the millionth time since they got in the car. It sounds highly illogical that she’s said it a million times but- whatever, she has, okay? He sighs and keeps his gaze on the passing forestry.

“So, I’ve been told. By everybody.”

“By three people,” she answers back. Excuse him for being a little impatient after what happened yesterday, when Derek was sitting against the wall waiting for him and not Scott. He couldn’t sit there and pretend to not want to go home, so he just turned around and left.

“Three people too many, to be honest.” He can hear the eye roll as she takes a left turn. They’re not too far now. He’s dreading it.

“What’d you bring him?” she changes the subject, and it sounds so casual that if he didn’t know her as well as he does, he might actually believe that she thinks he’s there waiting for him. They both know better, as proven by the fact that he’s empty handed today.

“Nothing,” he glances down at the floor, where there’s no bogs and no treats sitting there between his legs. “No use carrying a bunch of shit around for nothing, eh?” She shakes her head, like _he’s_ the one being illogical here.

“You know even if he’s not there, it’s not your faul-”

“Don’t,” he cuts in, maybe a little harsher than was strictly necessary, but it shut her up all the same. He’s not even angry, he’s tired of hearing the same bullshit over and over again. Stiles never actually blamed himself, never in words anyway. The fact that everyone keeps saying it for him just goes to show that they think it, too.

Otherwise, they must be mind-readers.

“Should I hang around, just in case? You were pretty quick yesterday.” And there it is, the doubt in her mind finally bleeding through, and he can’t even feel smug about catching her out on her lies. Stiles shakes his head.

“No. I’ll call you if I need you.” She nods, and if he knows her as well as he thinks he does, _she’s_ feeling smug right now. He knows all she heard there was that he has hope that Scott will be there, and that that’s why he’ll take so long. Truth is he’ll be talking to Derek, but she doesn’t have to know that.

“Yesterday,” she starts again, and the word cuts him like a cold reminder of the ache he felt the day before. “Was he there? The guy?” _Derek_ , he almost corrects. Stiles shakes his head again instead, in one of the few occasions where he manages to bite his tongue.

“No. No, he wasn’t there. Nobody was.” He hopes she can’t pick up on his lies, but he figures her attention is being paid mostly to the road, so he thinks he’s in the clear for now. She can read him like a book usually, that girl.

“Maybe Scott just missed you,” she says, and Stiles actually laughs. It’s bitter, but amused at the same time.

“Don’t patronize me,” he wheezes, coming down from the high of the laugh. Lydia sighs across from him, and it has his temper flaring, even though she’s not to know he has an insider giving him information. He doesn’t even know if he can trust Derek. He can’t tell anyone about him until he knows Derek is a reliable source.

“How do you know he hasn’t?” Lydia pushes him further.

“Because Scott hasn’t ‘missed me’ in four years, okay Lyds? That’s not something that ever happens.” The end of the sentence feels final, and a silence drags on between them that’s almost unbearably loud.

“I just hate seeing you like this,” she says softly, glancing at him briefly before turning back to the road. It’s only when she looks at him that he realizes how he must look. Tired, pale, slouched down in the seat, and when he becomes aware of himself, he realizes he’s honest to God pouting.

“You must be pretty used to by now. After four years of it.” It comes out with more patience than what he’s actually feeling, and it just now hits him how long it’s been going on for. _Four years_. Four year and nothing. If anything, they’re further off from saving anybody in there than they were at the beginning.

“It wasn’t always like this.”

“No, because he was alive!” he yells, and he’s not even apologetic for the way that she flinches across from him. “We had hope!” His voice is a loud contrast to hers, and she keeps herself calm and collected while Stiles seems to be splitting at the seams.

“There’s always hope, Stiles.” She sounds hopeful, and it’s so genuine that he almost falls for it. He shakes his head in frustration, unbuckling his seat belt as the car comes to a halt.

“The only thing we can hope for, is that I haven’t actually killed him.” And with that he slams the car door shut behind him, trudging off into the woods alone and leaving her there with a tear running down her cheek.

He knows he shouldn’t be so harsh on her, he knows it’s not her fault, and it’s only when he’s minutes away from the facility that he realizes this. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do later, but he’ll figure it out eventually. Right now there are more pressing matters at hand, like the broody stranger named Derek waiting on the other side of the fence for him.

He can’t say he’s surprised, or even disappointed. Nah, he went through the stages of denial for the last time yesterday, when his heart shattered the moment he saw Derek waiting and not Scott. They had geared him up for it all day, told him he’d be there, told him not to worry, made him fall for it, made him hopeful.

Not today. No, today, he got exactly what he was expecting. It hurts slightly less when you know life is going to fuck you over. At least he had time to prepare for this one.

Stiles sighs and accepts his fate, wordlessly sitting down cross-legged in the grass. Derek’s eyes are on him the entire time, and he doesn’t speak either. The sound for the first few moments is the wind brushing against the leaves and branches behind him. Derek still watches him.

“McCall’s not here,” he states, and okay, Stiles snorts. Derek narrows his eyes at him, but with their thickness it’s hard to take them seriously.

“Gee, I didn’t notice. Thanks for the info though, I knew I could count on you.” Derek looks more confused now than anything, and there’s maybe a hint of anger there, or frustration. Another silence falls between them, and it’s only when Derek looks like he’s about to high-tail it out of there that Stiles speaks again. “So what’s new with you, Derek?” Now there’s _just_ confusion on his face.

“What?” he asks gruffly.

“What’s up? Talk to me here,” he gestures to himself, and then between the two of them. “You do know how to talk, right?” Derek full on scowls at him, and boy is it fun winding this guy up.

“I didn’t come here to talk,” he says stiffly. Stiles tilts his head at him.

“Why _did_ you come here?” Stiles settles down on the ground, curling his arms around his legs for some extra warmth. Derek shrugs. Stiles shrugs back. Derek quirks an eyebrow, Stiles mimics him back. Derek rolls his eyes and Stiles only smiles back him, not whole-heartedly but it’s wide and amused.

“I came to tell you Scott wasn’t here.” Stiles glances around the area.

“Well, duh,” he says, not finding anything so funny once he realizes why he was here in the first place. “You know if there was nobody here waiting for me I’d get the message, dude.” Derek looks genuinely uncomfortable now whereas Stiles got the impression the scowling before was for show, it doesn’t seem so much now.

“Sorry,” he says, moving to stand up. Stiles almost stands up with him. “I’ll just go.”

“Woah,” Stiles replies, “I was just kidding, man.” He gets the feeling Derek doesn’t like being called _dude_ or _man_. But hey, the brief looks of outrage on his face are totally worth it. Derek reluctantly sits back down, looking a little shy.

“You don’t have to pity me,” he says. “Don’t feel like you have to stay, I’m not McCall.”

“Well, I’m here now. So, you can totally pity _me_ and talk to me for the next hour because I’ve got shit else to do today.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, like he’s unsure if this is a good idea. “What’s up?” Stiles laughs at the stiffness in his words, and Derek scowls at him again. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Stiles calms himself. “It’s just- you don’t seem like the kind of guy that says _what’s up_ a lot.”

“Well, I live in a prison. Usually all that’s up is the attempted suicide rate.” Stiles laughs, despite the probable seriousness of Derek’s words, but Derek smiles back all the same.

“All’s quiet on my side, dude. Got a shit ton of homework that needs to doin’, though.”

“You have homework?” Derek asks, like this information genuinely surprises him.

“Yup. I got calc and history,” he sighs, dreading the night ahead of him. He sees Adderall and coffee in his future.

“You’re still in high school,” Derek says, and it’s less of a question than it is a statement. Stiles wonders if Derek’s ever heard of a question mark.

“Yup,” Stiles nods his head. “Senior.” Derek nods his head back.

“You gonna go to college?” Derek pushes on, even though he doesn’t seem particularly interested in the answer, not that Stiles has a definite answer, or any answer at all.

“We’ll see how things go.” Derek nods again. The truth is Stiles hasn’t even thought of college, he doesn’t even know what he wants for dinner, never mind what he wants to do in life. He supposes he hasn’t thought about it much because that would mean accepting the idea of leaving Scott behind. He doesn’t know if he’d have the heart, not that Scott would even stand for him staying.

“I never finished,” Derek continues, thankfully pulling Stiles away from his thoughts. He pushes them away, he’ll deal with them later when he’s not talking to some stranger.

“College?” Stiles asks.

“High school.” Stiles feels his eyebrows shoot up before he can stop them, and Derek’s eyes follow them up his forehead.

“Sorry,” Stiles says, dipping his head. “I always find it strange that people don’t finish. Scott barely even got the chance to start.” He feels sad all of a sudden, that Scott is missing out on everything that Stiles has been through. Scott would be on first line, he was always good.

Derek nods, like he’s a fucking bobblehead, and Stiles barely contain the roll of his eyes, so he moves the conversation forward, sensing an awkward silence on the way.

“So how are thing on your side?” Stiles asks. As disgusting and inhumane as he finds the facility, he’s always curious to know the inner workings of the place. He finds it interesting, but aggravating most of the time. What can he says, he’s a glutton for punishment.

“Everything’s been calm since Isaac got back,” he says, and then he looks like he immediately regretted it, judging by how his eyes widen comically and his eyebrows shoot up. Stiles would find it funny if he wasn’t so confused.

“How is he?” he asks, and he’s not sure if Derek’s going to answer. It crushes him that he’s responsible for causing Isaac trouble, too, Scott does nothing but talk the guy up. “He’s okay, right?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, clearing his throat. He’s not sure why Derek’s become so stilted, but he guesses it’s because he knows Stiles is feeling guilty, or because he doesn’t know how Isaac is at all. Maybe he just doesn’t want to rub it in Stiles’ face that the person he cares for actually came back.

This time an awkward silence _doe_ s fall between them, and Stiles finds himself sitting with his head in his hands. It’s when he finally thinks about why Derek is actually here, that he comes to another realization.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Stiles raises his hands up, palms flat out. “How did you know I was even here?” he points at the other man. “Like. The first time you came here. How did you know? I thought Scott didn’t tell anybody. We agreed. Did he tell you?”

Derek takes a long breath in. “Let’s just say, subtlety isn’t exactly McCall’s strong suit.” Stiles snorts, but Derek seems more concerned about it than he does find it funny.

“And it only took four years to figure it out, huh?” Stiles winks, and Derek scowls.

“Shut up,” he mutters. Stiles gets the sense that there’s more bite to it than Derek means there to be. Derek could literally grab him right now and eat him if he so pleased, so he knows he’s not actually pissing the guy off. Stiles just gives him a shit-eating grin and Derek dips his gaze to the floor, shaking his head.

Well, not pissing him off _that_ much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's Christmas in two days, why not give me the gift of a comment or a kudos? Feedback's always appreciated!
> 
> Happy Holidays!


	4. Second Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So who’s your new friend?” Danny asks, because he’s an ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! So I've got a couple of announcements.
> 
> First of all, this chapter's a little longer than normal. I only covered half of what I wanted to happen in this chapter, and it was getting dangerously close to 25k, so I had to split it into two parts, this being part one I guess.
> 
> Secondly, I think this chapter's the most well-written so far. I think it's a pretty big improvement than the previous 3, since I wrote it while on Christmas break from college and so didn't have to rush. I've started a re-write of the first three chapters, which will basically be the same plot-points only hopefully written better.
> 
> Thirdly, there's a couple of trigger warnings in the end notes.

Stiles rushes down the stairs, late for school, shoving an arm into his hoodie while buttoning his shirt at the same time. He almost brains himself against the bannister after almost tripping over his untied shoelaces, taking two steps at a time. It’s not until he steps into the kitchen that he realizes his dad is still home.

Which is unusual, because if he’s late then his dad’s even later. He stops on the threshold of the door, staring at him father as he works by the cooker. The clock on the far wall tells him that he’s in fact, fifteen minutes _early_.

Stiles coughs, catching his father’s attention, whose face breaks into a warm smile at the sight of him. “Morning,” he greets, before quickly turning back to the cooker.

“I thought you said I was late,” he replies, leaning against the door frame.

“You were,” his father answers him, moving towards him and stopping at the fridge. “For breakfast,” he holds up the eggs, abandons them on the counter before checking on something in the oven.

“For breakfast,” Stiles repeats disbelievingly, quirking an eyebrow at his father who nods. “Okay,” he says slowly, not moving further into the room. He’s about to turn around when his father looks back at him before he can.

“Well, are you going to just stand there, or are you going to start on the eggs?” Stiles doesn’t move for a moment, and his father halts whatever he was doing with his hands to stare at him. He meets his father’s eyes, and there’s something different about them, they’re strained, like he’s pleading with him.

Stiles sighs before reluctantly making a start on the eggs. John smiles at him, his features smoothing out as Stiles joins his side, cracking the eggs into a jug to scramble them. They work in silence, but it’s not exactly comfortable. There’s a tension in the air, which isn’t exactly new to either of them.

“Just thought we haven’t sat down for a meal together in a while,” he father says, his tone a little off. Stiles is saved from having to reply by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He abandons the whisk to answer it, and is both surprised and a little scared when he sees the caller ID.

“Hey, Danny,” he tries for casual, swallowing past the lump in his throat and prays for his heartrate to calm down.

“We need to talk,” is all he says, and that has Stiles truly scared. He figures it’s a conversation his dad doesn’t have to be around for.

“One sec,” he says down the line, but when he makes a move for the door his father clears his throat to grab his attention again and points at the eggs. Stiles pauses for a moment, unsure what to do, before carefully walking back to his father’s side.

He hopes it didn’t look too obvious when he switches the phone to the other ear. He stands with a little more distance between himself and his father than before. “Go on,” he says, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he gets back to work.

“So who’s your new friend?” Danny asks because he’s an ass, and Stiles’ hand stutters as he mixes. He glances over at his father briefly, and he’s standing in a way that says he’s listening and he doesn’t care whether or not he’s being obvious.

“New friend?” he asks carefully, and his father’s lips press together.

“Yes, Stiles, your new friend. You know, the one you’ve been meeting with for the last week instead of Scott?” Danny presses. Stiles winces, prays the volume on his phone isn’t too loud as his father passes him to get to the fridge again.

“Oh. You mean Derek.” He doesn’t miss the way his father peeks his head around the fridge door at that, but Stiles doesn’t acknowledge him otherwise. He pours the eggs onto the heated pan instead.

“So his name’s Derek, huh?” Stiles sighs loudly down the phone. “Stiles, what are you doing?” Danny asks him seriously, his tone not as light or teasing as before. He looks over at his father, who’s mouthing the word ‘coffee’ at him and he nods.

“Listen, I can’t really talk right now, call me later.” His father joins him by the cooker and takes the whisk from Stiles’ hand, ushering him away to take over.

“Well, you tell _Derek_ that he needs to get the timetable for when he can and can’t sneak away. Dude’s got me under pressure, man, Nate nearly saw him last time.” Stiles swallows, and he can’t help but wonder just how long Derek waits around for him every day.

“Will do,” he says with forced enthusiasm. “I’ll talk to you later, Danny,” is all he says before hanging up the phone without waiting for a response. He approaches his father again, still confused as to what exactly is happening right now, but goes along with the show anyway as he takes his plate of eggs from his father.

Stiles sits at the table with his coffee, and his father joins him across the table with an extra plate of toast and bacon that he sets on the table between them. Stiles eyes him as he takes a slice of toast, mashing his scrambled egg onto it. It’s just as the silence is increasing in awkwardness that his father speaks, and does nothing to defuse the tension.

“So, who’s this new friend Derek?” he asks, and Stiles can barely contain the wince. He has half a mind to just run out the door, but he knows his father is trying right now, even if it might be too little too late.

“Hmm?” Stiles mutters around his toast. His father is too busy staring at his plate to meet his eyes, and Stiles guesses that he’s pointedly doing so.

“This Derek guy?” his father finally looks back up at him, meeting his eyes and staring at him in such a way that Stiles can’t help but answer him.

“Oh,” he swallows, “It’s just a guy from school, he’s new in town.” His father nods, and Stiles tries to think about how his father would probably know of all the new families that move here.

“What’s his surname?” Stiles goes to answer him, opens his mouth until he realizes that he doesn’t actually know Derek’s last name. He swallows, putting a piece of bacon on his plate.

“I don’t really know him that well. I mean, like I said, he’s new,” he finishes lamely, and his father just nods, ripping off pieces of his toast and eating it like that.

“You like him?” Stiles wills his cheeks not to turn red, and its times like these that he’d rather _not_ talk to his dad. They’ve barely said a word to each other in years and now suddenly his father’s cooking him breakfast and prying his way into his life like nothing’s ever happened. Stiles almost wants to tell him where to shove it.

“He’s nice,” he says instead, a little more bitter than strictly necessary. It’s true, too, Derek’s a nice guy, even if he doesn’t know much about him. He wouldn’t say he really _likes_ Derek, especially in the way his father is talking about, he’s just a substitute, and Stiles really doesn’t want to think about this right now.

“So, you’re still hung up on Lydia, huh?”

“No,” Stiles answers quickly. “She’s one of my best friends.” He hasn’t felt anything for Lydia in years, not since Allison brought her into their little three man group and Stiles got to know her better. As amazing as Lydia is, she’s just not who he thought she was, but he still worships her for everything that she is.

“Well, you tell Derek that he can come round for dinner anytime he wants.” Stiles almost snaps at that, drains his coffee instead. His father doesn’t have the right to act like this, not after everything he’s done. He’s not aware he’s scowling until his father tilts his head at him.

“What’s wrong? You look tired, have you been sleeping okay?” It’s how genuine his father sounds that breaks him. He wonders if he actually cares, or whether or not the concern in his voice came from years of working as the sheriff.

“No, I-” _can’t sleep_ , “I was up late doing homework. Lost track of time is all,” he scrapes up the last of his eggs.

“You doing okay? You’re not over-working yourself are you?” Stiles shakes his head, grumbles out an “I’m fine.” His father nods, not pushing the subject any further, probably sensing there’s more that Stiles isn’t telling him.

“I had a late one myself. We had a busy night at the station.” Stiles doesn’t ask, doesn’t want to know who or what kept them busy that late at night. He’d rather not know what his dad does at the station anymore, it’ll only end up with a fight.

He’s taken from his thoughts when his eyes flick down towards his father as he grabs a piece of bacon. Stiles raises his eyebrows at him warning, but his father just shrugs and takes a bite anyway, the hint of a smile on his face.

“Don’t give me that look,” his father tells him.

“What look?” he asks. “There’s no look.” His father eats the last of his bacon and looks at him with an amused expression on his face. Stiles can’t help but smile back at him, he’s actually enjoying this.

“That’s the ‘vegetables for dinner look to make up for the bacon I just ate’ look,” his father says pointedly. It’s true. They’re having vegetables tonight, his father brought this on himself.

“And to think I wasn’t even going to make them tonight. That’s what you get,” he blinks innocently, and his father sighs, not looking put-out in the slightest.

“Get your butt to school,” he says instead, and a quick look at the clock says that he’s going to be late if he doesn’t get a move on soon. “Harris’ll have your ass,” his father says, but instead of telling him he doesn’t have Harris until the end of the day he stands from the table and loads the dishwasher with the plates and cutlery they used.

“I can give you a ride, if you like,” his father says hopefully, and Stiles almost says yes.

“No, I’m gonna go to Allison’s after school so I should probably have the jeep with me,” he lies, but his father won’t be here after school to see him come home on time. His father just nods silently and pats his shoulder, walks him to the door.

“I’ll see you later, dad,” he smiles as he steps out the door. His father smiles back as he closes the door behind Stiles, and Stiles stops where he stands when he hears it. It’s quiet, but it was there, and Stiles isn’t sure his father intended on letting Stiles even hear it.

He presses his forehead against the door, sighs quietly against it as he takes a moment to compose himself. He swears the tears in his eyes and the lump in his throat are from something else entirely. And he’s not even sure how he even feels about it, whether he feels angry or frustrated or even happy.

His father’s words echo in his ears. He hasn’t said it in years.

_“Bye, kiddo”_

::: :::

Derek’s hungry. Which is why he finds himself walking down the hall towards the cafeteria. He’s been up for about two hours now, and thankfully nobody’s been around to his cell yet. Because they’d probably bring Isaac with them and he can’t handle that yet.

Which is why he’s been- keeping his distance. He wouldn’t say he’s been avoiding him. Kinda. Maybe.

His stomach growls as he walks, hoping nobody can hear his body betraying the sour, bad boy image he’s gotten himself in here. He not to subtly checks over his shoulder to make sure nobody’s within hearing range.

And then there’s the job of actually getting past Isaac’s cell without getting caught. Isaac’s bed is directly lined towards the door, so it’s kind of hard to not get noticed, especially if Isaac is actually there and not somewhere else.

His suspicions are met when Erica steps out of the door way, and Derek freezes in his place, only for someone to call Erica back in before she can see him. He sighs in relief, thanking whatever gods are out there when a group of wolves walk by him in the same direction. He catches him, sticking to the side where Isaac’s cell will be blocked by the group of young girls.

He’s only about fifteen feet away from passing the cell when Erica steps back out again, and he ducks behind one of the tall girls, crowding in close and hoping that none of them notice. He breathes a sigh of relief as they pass Erica without getting noticed, and promptly walks in front of the girls to keep himself guarded.

Okay, so he’s avoiding Isaac.                                          

He gets to the cafeteria in record time, and swiftly turns on his heels when he sees who’s guarding the queue. Nate. Memories of what Nate said to him the last time they spoke flash through his head, of Kate being alive and free. The thought doesn’t sit well with him, it’s been haunting him every day since.

He has some questions for Stiles later.

::: :::

“It was just- the weirdest thing,” Stiles joins Allison on the hood of his car. As it turns out, he did decide to spend some time with Allison after school, and they ended up in the park after class, Allison leading the way and Stiles following in the jeep.

“It was just- ugh, I don’t even-” he sighs shaking his head, handing her an ice-cream he bought her from the vendor down the pathway.

“That was it? You woke up and it was like everything was normal again?” Allison scrunches her nose up in distaste, and Stiles doesn’t know whether it’s from his father or the ice-cream she’s eating. He opens his own, and it’s already half melted, running down the stick.

“No, it was like nothing ever happened _at all_. You know, like, it’s never been any different.” He squints, licking the ice-cream off his fingers as the situation gets progressively worse. Allison scrunches her nose up at his lack of manners before pointedly looking away.

“And you just went along with it?”

“He made breakfast!” he yells in his own defence, and the look Allison gives him tells him she thinks it’s as weak of an argument as he does. “And he was asking me about school, and if I was okay and-” Stiles’ voice hitches a little. “He called me ‘kiddo’,” he says quietly, eyes directed to the ground as he dumps his melted ice-cream on the ground. Allison scowls at him for it, he pretends not to see.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, and he feels a hand on his shoulder, rubbing gentle circles into his skin.

“Did it make you happy?” Stiles blows out a breath, shaking his head. He gets up and picks his ice-cream off the floor, taking Allison’s from her out-stretched hand.

“I don’t know how it made me feel,” he says over his shoulder, and Allison hops off the hood and follows him over to the garbage can. “One hand I’m angry,” he continues, beginning to walk down the lane through the park. “After everything he’s done over the years, terrible things, I don’t even get an apology. It’s like he thinks he can click his fingers and everything’s just fuckin’ awesome again.”

He kicks a pile of dead leaves as he walks, and Allison hums, stepping in unison with him. They stop by the lake in the centre of the park, leaning against the railing and watching the ducks play in the water. There’s a family a little down the way, throwing pieces of bread in the water and attracting most of them.

“And on another hand I’m frustrated. He doesn’t have the right to act like nothing’s happened, he can’t just invalidate everything he’s done because he says so. And that just makes me even angrier.”

“And?” Allison encourages him, sensing there’s more. Stiles sighs.

“And yeah, it made me happy. He called me _kiddo_ , he hasn’t said that since-” _Mom_. “And it did feel nice to actually sit down and talk to him. A part of me liked pretending that nothing ever happened, it felt easier to forget. And another part of me is angry at myself for that, and that he made me happy, and that just makes me angry.”

“So I’m guessing that you feel angry about it,” Allison chuckles, resting her chin in her hands, staring out at the ducks dipping their heads in the water and ruffling their feathers. Stiles smiles a little at it, they’re cute.

“Mostly,” he answers honestly. “Among other things.”

“That make you angry,” she grins. Stiles laughs, nodding his head.

“It sounds to me like he’s trying,” she says softly, the smile on her face softer. Stiles just looks back at her, thinking about that. He knows his father’s trying, she’s right about that, and he wonders if maybe how he’s acting is a little too harsh.

“Am I wrong here? Am I being the bad guy?” He doesn’t really want to know the answer, because even if he is, he’s not sure it’s going to change anything.

“No,” she replies easily, and he actually believes her. It soothes him. “Me and my dad didn’t always get along, remember?” Stiles nods at her, remembering the nights she’d stay at his to get away from the screaming at home, how they didn’t speak for months, remembers how long it took for her to trust him again.

“Things like this can’t just go away, they just _can’t_ ,” she continues. “And I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, because it’s not. It’s a long and hard process, but things will heal in time. You just have to be patient.” Stiles nods, even if he is still unsure, and jerks his head towards the carpark so they’ll start walking again.

“I can’t just go on like this. He can’t just pretend we haven’t spent the last four years walking on eggshells around each other. _Four years_ , Allison,” raising said number of fingers for emphasis.

“Do you want to spend the _rest_ of them walking on eggshells?” It’s a question that has Stiles stopping in his tracks, and Allison stops and turns to look at him.

He’s always thought that this would be the rest of his life with his father, he never thought they’d ever recover. Birthdays and Christmases have been hard enough as it is, Stiles has learned to dread his birthday more than look forward to it, too many stiff hugs and awkward eye contact for him to handle.

Not to mention the fact that he’s going off to college this September, and he’s not sure that if he leaves he’ll ever come back, all of his other responsibilities be damned. Especially since Scott hasn’t shown his face in over a week, and all things considered, his father hasn’t given him much to come back for.

But now things can be different, he can look forward to birthdays and Christmases and have a reason to come home for the holidays. His father’s just given him a peace offering, an olive branch.

And he’s being a little brat about it.

“Of course not,” he says quietly, meeting her stare. Allison considers him, hair blowing in the cool breeze as they stand in silence, nothing but the echoes of children playing around them and birds chirping happily in the trees. The truth is he wants this, he wants his father to be his father again, he wants to be his father’s son again.

“Then I think you should try, too,” she says after some consideration. And that’s when the reality of it hits him. John Stilinski is going to be his father again, a name that’s become something of a dirty word in his head. His mind unravels back to the other week, when his father just shot that man in the woods and handed him over like it was _nothing_.

And at the end of the day he doesn’t think it would have mattered if it had been a stranger or Scott or Allison or Derek. There’s not a doubt in his mind his father would have done the same to him.

Stiles shakes his head, blinking back tears as he steps ahead of her, her attempts at slowing him down by pulling on his sleeve futile.

“I don’t think I can forgive him, Ally,” he says to her once she catches up to him by the jeep. “Not after everything he’s done, the lives he’s destroyed. Imagine what he’d say to me about the things we do, he wouldn’t understand, he can’t understand- and- everything with Gerard- I can’t just- just-”

His breath hitches, and Allison watches him with wide eyes as he feels the panic taking over. His throat dries and closes, constricting the passage to his lungs as he gasps for air. His breathing becomes laboured, his chest heaving as it gets harder and harder to breathe. He sucks in air as best he can through his nose, his breathing heavy and harsh to get that tiny intake of oxygen.

It all happens in a rush and slow motion all at once, everything too fast and too slow to focus on. Allison grabs his shoulders, pushing his back against the jeep door. She steps back, blinking and watching him as her hands move in a frenzy. He slumps down the door, gripping the handle for support, and she follows him until they’re both squatting.

She’s saying something, her voice fast and shaky, but he can’t make out the words, going in one ear and out the other before he can process any of it. He tries to read her mouth, but his vision swirls like a ripple in the ocean, and it’s like he’s under water. He can’t see and he can’t breathe, and it’s like his ears are filling up with water, the sound muffled.

Allison pulls him completely to the ground, and his legs give way as his bones turn to jelly. His head lulls back, and he stares of at the sky with watery, strained eyes. The tree branches high above them are nothing but blurry black lines fading into the blue sky. Allison shifts his head where it’s lulling around dazedly, and her face comes in and out of focus.

“It’s okay,” he hears her tell him, but it’s hard to hear over the beating of his heart in his ears. “Breath with me,” he thinks she says, but he can barely hear her and her mouth is moving too fast to lip read. He shakes his head, he attempts to get up, but his hand ends up hitting something hard and shots of pain run up his arm.

“Stiles!” she tries, and he hears her better this time when she shouts. He tries to argue, to push her away only to weakly clutch her coat as a high pitched whine escapes his lips. His arms go limp and he ends up pulling her forward, her forehead crashing against his and causing the back of his own head to hit back against the jeep.

She doesn’t pull away, as much as he’s babbling for her to, and she grabs his head still. “Breathe,” she says softly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.” He does as she says, going in and out in two’s like she directs him to. Eventually they make it to six, and the more he breathes the clearer he hears her guiding him.

They sit like that until he starts to feel a little woozy from all the controlled breathing, clutching each other tightly, and until his hand starts to hurt. He opens his eyes to a face full of Allison’s hair, until she pulls away when Stiles starts to choke on it. She laughs, sitting back against her own car parked next to the jeep.

“Well, now that _that_ show is over,” he tilts his head to the rest of the car park, where a few families are walking idly by. She huffs a laugh, her own breathing heavy. She hisses with a wince when she looks down at his right hand, the skin torn and red and bleeding from where he must have smacked it against the gravel earlier.

“Come on,” she stands and offers him a hand up, “I’ve got a first aid kit in my trunk.” Stiles does too, for the record, but he figures this is job better done by someone else rather than a half-assed job at midnight tonight. She opens the trunk and sits on the edge of her car in silence as she locates the box, rummage through an endless pile of coats and bags and cables and- shoes.

“It looks like Lydia threw up in the back of your car,” he states, and Allison laughs as she pulls out the box.

“You should see my closet,” he says, flicking through band aids and antiseptics and needles. He tries not to think about that, instead focusing on what Allison said. He can’t help but smirk at the idea of Lydia throwing out half of her clothes and replacing them.

That being said, when Allison first moved here it probably happened. Lydia doesn’t fuck around.

“Bah!” he flinches back, pulling his hand away from Allison’s where she’s wiping his knuckles down with an alcohol wipe. She thought she’d be sneaky about it, too, catching him while he was off-guard. She holds her hand out like she’s talking to a toddler.

“Gimme your hand and stop being such a baby,” she says sternly in her best kindergartner teacher voice. He gapes at her, cradling his abused hand close to his chest and mouths the word ‘no’ at her. She rolls her eyes, grabbing his hand anyway and yanking him forward. He tries not to think about the yelp that escaped his mouth as she did.

He sits down again, wincing at the touch. “Stiles. I haven’t even started yet.”

“I know but it’s the anticipation that’s the worst part,” he whines, biting his knuckles when Allison really goes to town on his hand with that wipe. He only whimpers a little bit (a lot), Allison grinning at him like the crazy person that she is inside.

Eventually the whimpering stops and they sit in silence as Allison works her trained hunter magic on him. They learn medical training pretty early on, apparently. Among other things. He startles when she speaks again, as she unwraps some bandages from the roll.

“Nobody’s asking you to forgive him,” she says. He doesn’t say anything to that, just watches her wrap the bandage around his hand and knuckles. “He’s not asking that.” That confuses him, because he thought that’s what the entire ordeal he went through this morning was about. Forgiveness.

“Then I don’t know what he wants from me,” he says quietly. Allison finishes wrapping the bandage around his hand, cutting the end of it and stick the end piece down with some tape. She puts the scissors and tape back in the box and discards it in the trunk again, sitting beside him.

“He’s asking for a second chance, Stiles,” which catches him off guard, because he knows there’s only one road he can go down when it’s put like that. “I think we all deserve one, don’t you?” Stiles nods absently, and Allison smiles softly at him as a car pulls up on the other side of the jeep. “Think about it, okay?”

Stiles nods at her again, pulling his sleeve down at the sound of heels hitting the ground heavily. “That’d be my ride,” he motions his head for Allison to look behind him.

“Yeah, you wish, Stilinski,” Lydia strides up to them, and Stiles sneers up at her. Allison sighs, probably because her peace and quiet is now officially over. He made it up to Lydia for snapping at her the other day, after countless errands she made him do. She even had a list. Already made.

“The bickering never ends,” she sighs, pulling the trunk door down as Stiles squawks to safety from being crushed.

“You could have killed me, you know,” he says matter of factly, and Allison rolls her eyes as she steps towards the driver’s side of her car.

“Wouldn’t that be a shame?” and Lydia hums beside her. Stiles balks at the two of them, Lydia unapologetically admiring her nails and Allison grinning devilishly at him. Dangerous, they are together. Menaces to society.

“I’ll have you know, I am a pleasure,” and they both snort, Lydia dragging him away and Allison getting into her car. They nod at each other from the cars as they pull out the gate, both driving in opposite directions. Her words sit with him for the entire journey.

_A second chance._

::: :::

Derek can’t help but just watch Stiles as he fidgets, more than usual actually, his fingers playing with the seam of his hoodie or the laces of his shoes or pretty much anything he can reach. He’s miles away, sitting right in front of him, a crease in his brow making him look deep in thought. Derek doesn’t comment on the bandage wrapped around his hand. Yet.

“What’s wrong?” he can’t help but ask. Stiles startles, blinking at him and stilling his hands where they were pulling on the strings of his hoodie. He was getting pretty close to strangling himself.

“Oh, nothing,” he shakes his head, waving a dismissive hand in Derek’s direction. “Just tired is all,” he lies as he looks back down at the grass, shoulders sagging. By the state of him Derek might have actually believed him if it wasn’t for the barely there uptick of his heartbeat.

“Stiles,” he says warningly, and Stiles rolls his eyes, knowing there’s not much Derek can do to make him speak. Derek’s brow furrows deeper, and Stiles finally breaks eye contact with him and sighs, long and pained.

“Do you believe in second chances?” Stiles asks him. Derek just stares back at him, thinking that that was the last thing he was expecting to come from the guy’s mouth. He considers him, chooses a safe answer.

“Depends,” is all he says, and Stiles looks at him like he’s been no help at all. It’s the truth, though. Isaac, he deserved a second chance, McCall even. Pretty much everybody in here deserves a second chance, except the hunters. People like Kate and Gerard and Nate don’t deserve second chances. They deserve to live the way he’s lived.

“On what?”

“On how bad they fucked up,” Derek answers him, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. In his mind it is. Stiles looks back down on the ground. “Why are you asking me this? Is it the bandage?” Stiles pulls his sleeve down over his hand, and Derek wonders if it was a subconscious move considering how deep in thought he looks. “Did someone hurt you?”

Stiles jerks his head up, and Derek almost flinches. His eyes are wide and tired as he shakes his head, brow creasing and mouth turning downwards.

“What? No. No, of course not. I was just being a klutz,” he laughs weakly, and Derek half-believes him, but he knows there’s more to it than that. “I mean, not physically.”

“Who are we talking about here?” he asks, biting his tongue when what he really wants to do is reach out and grab him. It’s not new seeing Stiles like this, there’s a glimpse of that facial expression every time he sees Derek instead of Scott, but he’s been happier lately, if that’s the word you’d use. Less… tense.

He doesn’t like seeing him like this, and he thinks it’s weird that he feels that way. He barely even knows the guy.

Stiles looks back at him like the answer to his question physically pains him to respond with whatever name he wants to say, instead opting for a more careful answer, however vague.

“Someone close to me.” Derek wonders if it’s a friend, his mother or father, a boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe. He doesn’t push, though, because Stiles’ wording was deliberate and he’s clearly not ready to completely open up about it, which is understandable all things considered.

“What did they do?” Derek asks instead, expecting an equally vague answer. Stiles doesn’t answer right away, putting thought into his words before he speaks again.

“He’s…” Stiles trails off, squinting before shaking his head. Derek doesn’t say anything, doesn’t encourage him to say anything when he doesn’t want to, doesn’t try to fill in the gaps for him. Stiles will tell him what he wants to tell him, because he’s been in Stiles’ situation a thousand times.

“He’s not a bad guy,” he says then, catching Derek’s attention again. “And he has everyone’s best interests at heart, but he’s-” He can tell Stiles is struggling, mainly because Stiles is never one to be lost for words. Ever. “He does bad things, but he doesn’t understand that they’re bad things, he thinks what he’s doing is right. I don’t know,” he sighs. “He’s just ignorant.”

Derek tilts his head at him, and the way Stiles looks up at him with his lips in a firm line tells him he’s done talking now. Derek thinks back on what he said.

“Sounds like a hunter,” he says, wondering if that was the right thing to respond with. He’s guessing no, they way Stiles immediately pales, even paler than he already is, and his face crumples for a fraction of a second before he steals himself. “Stiles,” he says again, and Stiles’ eye flick back to him from where he was staring off into the distance looking like someone stabbed him. “What happened?”

Stiles’ face goes blank, and he swallows harshly before shaking his head. “Nothing, just- I was just curious about something. And you know what they say,” he says, voice getting forcefully happier by the syllable, “Curiosity killed the cat, so I’m just going to move on. Have I told you that I figured out what I want to do in college? I figured it out the other day, like, I was just thinking and it suddenly hit me. It was, like, the most obvious thing, I don’t know how I didn’t think of it-”

“Stiles,” Derek stops him, tone stern.

“-sooner,” he finishes quietly, eyes not leaving the ground.

“Obviously you don’t want me to know what happened, for whatever reason that may be, so I can’t really give you any advice other than this. If you want it,” he adds. Stiles looks back up at him, his mouth parted as he nods his confirmation. “If you think this guy, whoever he is, deserves a second chance, then give him one.”

Stiles stares at him for what feels like minutes, before he catches himself and coughs, nods, before he says a simple, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Derek nods curtly, happy to help him in some way.

“So what are you going to do?” Derek asks him, and Stiles pauses, thinking.

“I don’t know,” and Derek sighs and rolls his eyes, making Stiles laugh. “I guess I’ll know when the time comes,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

Things go silent, comfortably, and it gives Derek time to think to himself as Stiles does the same. He thinks back to earlier, when he saw Nate, and he remembers what he was meant to ask Stiles today.

“Is Kate Argent dead?” he blurts out before he can think better of it, snapping his mouth shut as soon as he registers what he just said. Stiles just blinks at him, wide-eyed and gaping. He shakes his head, opening and closing his mouth.

“Woah, where the hell did that come from?” he leans closer, voice hushed. Derek curses himself inwardly, tries not to go tense and give anything away. He shrugs and tries to go for casual, but something on Stiles’ face tells him he’s not buying into it.

“Just heard someone say something a while ago,” he says, and it’s like lying to this guy is the easiest thing in the world. He somehow knows Stiles isn’t as easily fooled as he looks, especially when he just raises his eyebrows with a flat expression.

“About Kate Argent,” he says disbelievingly. Derek nods, pursing his lips in a way that says _yeah, what can you do?_ “Okay,” he says slowly, drawing out the word. Derek waits in anticipation, wondering if he even wants the answer now that he’s asked the question.

He doesn’t know if he can take the idea of that woman walking around free or in Beacon Hills, doesn’t like the fact that he could still bump into her here. The idea that Stiles even knows who she is unsettles him, a twist of tension in his stomach. They might even be close, could be Stiles’ next door neighbour for all he knows.

“Yeah,” is all Stiles says, and Derek almost flinches from the word, that is until he realizes he doesn’t know what Stiles is saying yes to. He waits for Stiles to continue, but Stiles just looks back at him like this is his first time seeing him. Derek lifts his eyebrows at him, and Stiles lifts them back, and they both raise them progressively higher.

“Is that it? Yeah?” he urges Stiles onward, heart beating rapidly and voice coming out shakier than he’d like. Stiles nods.

“Yup,” he pops the ‘p’, and Derek wonders if he’s being a little shit on purpose or if it just comes natural to him. He guesses it’s both.

“Oh my fucking God, Stiles, is she dead or alive?” Stiles eyebrows shoot up.

“She’s dead, dude,” he says with more ease than Derek can understand when it comes from a human. Or _uninfected_ as Stiles probably knows himself as. Also, she’s dead. Kate Argent is fucking dead. He breathes a sigh of relief, and feels like a whole weight has been lifted from his shoulders with those three words.

She’s dead. A small laugh escapes his lips, and Stiles only stares at him looking confused yet amused. He ignores the fact that he just rhymed in his own head.

“What?” he grumbles, coughing away the laugh and smirk on his face.

“You know, you don’t seem too put-out over her dying and everything,” he grins, his hands expressive and distracting.

“Well, let’s just say I didn’t really like her very much,” he says with less amusement now. He’s glad he knows the truth now, even though he wants to move the subject away from the person who burned his family alive. He blinks rapidly, staring at the floor as he wills his thoughts to go away, for his heart to stop hurting and beating like rapid fire all at once.

“Yeah, I wasn’t too fond of her either, the psycho bitch. Some guy cut her throat after she burned some family alive like four years back.” Derek slowly looks up at him, Stiles staring off into the distance looking angry and pained. He didn’t think Kate’s cause of death would have made it to the newspapers, but he supposes she was too big of a local celebrity for it not to be. “Got everything she deserved if you ask me.”

Stiles looks back at him and Derek quickly schools his features. “But you’re sure she’s dead?” he asks again, because he has to know for sure before he tries to erase her and everything to do with her from his mind completely. Stiles nods, looking a little concerned.

“Yeah, I went to her funeral.” Derek’s eyebrows shoot up at that, and he’s just about to ask about it when Stiles continues on, a smirk on his lips. “Got a front row seat and everything. Perks of being friends with an Argent I guess.”

Derek tenses, shoulders hunching in closer to himself. Stiles must notice, because he looks at Derek like he’s grown a second head. Derek stares at him, not quite meeting his eyes.

“You’re friends with an Argent?” Realization dawns on Stiles’ face as he begin shaking his head. He shifts closer, waving his hand casually like this isn’t a big fucking deal.

“Relax, it’s only Allison-”

“The girl you brought?” he almost shouts, and Stiles glances around quickly to make sure nobody heard him. He’s waving his hands in a ‘no, no, no, no’ fashion, and Derek’s on his feet in seconds, Stiles rushing to follow him. “You brought an Argent to the fence? Are you crazy? She-” his voice breaks as it rises in pitch the more he speaks.

Stiles is still shaking his head, but the expression on his face says all Derek needs to know, that he fucked up big time. “She saw me!” he hisses, crowding as close to Stiles as he can without head-butting the fence. Stiles looks at him with wide-eyes. Derek shakes his head at him, no doubt scowling _hard_ at the kid, before turning away.

He feels hands grabbing at his tee shirt and immediately stills. He carefully takes a minute step backwards toward the fence to allow Stiles to keep some space between himself and the wire. “Stiles. Take your hands out of the fence.” He can hear Stiles’ laboured breathing behind him.

“Not until you hear me out,” Stiles says, and his voice wavers like he’s in a panic. Derek sighs, nodding for him to continue.

“Go on,” he says flatly, because he remembers his own words from earlier, about giving people second chances if they deserve it.

“Allison is Scott’s girlfriend, okay? She’s one of my best friends, I’ve known her for years. She’s not like Kate or Gerard. Her and her dad, they- they’re different. They’re not-” He breaks off, thinks about his next words like they’re the deal breakers in all of this. “They’re good people,” he says softly, and Derek can feel his breath hit the back of his neck and it sends chills down his spine.

Derek turns his head as far as he can and just stares at him, wondering what to do with all of this information and wondering why Stiles is telling him all of this. Why he cared so much about Derek walking away. “You can trust me. You’re safe.”

“You’re not,” is all Derek says before he reaches behind his back to remove Stiles’ hands from his shirt, turns, and guides Stiles’ hands back through the fence. “Don’t do that again,” he says, before letting Stiles hands go.

“Is that your way of saying ‘I forgive you, Stiles. Please continue to grace me with your presence and awesomeness’.” Stiles wiggles his eyebrows at him with a big grin and Derek can’t help but snort, Stiles eyes twinkling.

“Something like that,” he says flatly, steeling himself again. They go back to sitting cross-legged on the ground, and as Stiles starts talking his ear off about college courses, he can’t help but agree that yeah, Stiles is safe.

::: :::

It’s late in the evening when Stiles gets home after picking up his jeep from the park. The sky is pink as the sun hangs low in the sky. The house is dark when he gets in, leaving his keys in the bowl before taking a seat on the couch in the living room.

His father won’t be home for another while, the house soundless apart from the ticking clock on the mantelpiece. He sits back, staring into the darkness as the last remnants of light disappear through the window.

The photograph of his father hanging on the wall fades into the shadows, and he clears his head.

And just thinks.

::: :::

Stiles leaves twenty minutes later, but not before he gives Derek the ‘schedule’ for when it’s appropriate to visit. He’d love to know who Stiles has on the inside, or how Stiles found him. He didn’t know there were people like that in here.

He doesn’t have much time to ponder on the idea as Erica catches up to him on the way to his cell. He startles as she runs into him, desperately grabbing onto his shoulder. Derek quickly spins to look at her, and his stomach drops at the look on her face. She’s panting, brow creased as she swallows, still gripping onto him.

 “What’s wrong?” he ducks his head at her, trying to catch her gaze as he settles both hands on each of her shoulders to steady her.

“Where have you been?” she gasps, but before Derek even has a chance to panic or  fumble for an answer to that, she’s jerking her chin in the direction of his cell, pulling him along in a rush.

“What-” He’s cut off by the movement, and he allows himself to be pulled. They’re both jogging by the time they reach the door, and Derek pushes ahead as he overtakes her. His head’s spinning, trying not to think of any of the horrible possibilities forming in his head.

He doesn’t hesitate before rushing into the room, halting himself as soon as his eyes land on what’s waiting inside for him. He slowly turns around, trying to fight the anger surging through him, only to see Erica leaning against the doorframe of the cell, a smug smile curling the edges of her lips. Boyd makes an appearance behind her, looking as unapologetic as her.

He sighs.

“What- what is this,” he says, tone flat as he shakes his head in disappointment at the two of them. He ignores the racing of his heart at the impending situation, just glares daggers at them because they all know there’s no going back from this now.

“You two assholes are being ridiculous,” Erica starts, and Derek winces when Boyd nods curtly behind her, as silent as ever. “So you’re going to work on your issues for a little bit, and when you do, you can come back out.” Derek huffs at her condescending tone, and she rolls her eyes at him as she pulls the door closed with a louder bang than necessary.

He turns just in time to see Isaac flinch at the sound, and it’s that moment that the guilt her feels come surging back. Guilt over what happened, and for avoiding him and for leaving it this late to talk to him. And for having Erica kick him up the ass to do so. Isaac blinks up at him from where he’s perched at the edge of Derek’s bed.

 “I think we need to talk,” he says, voice emotionless and weak. Derek nods, silently sitting on the bed next to him, and rests his elbows on his knees, sighing. He doesn’t say anything, waits for Isaac to speak first.

“I’m sorry,” is what he comes out with, and it shouldn’t surprise Derek as much as it does when he jerks his gaze towards him. Derek guesses apologizing is just an instinct to Isaac, something he picked up during the years of abuse under his father. Isaac doesn’t look up at him, eyes burning holes into the floor.

Derek rubs his shoulder gently, and Isaac tenses at first, slowly relaxing under Derek’s hand. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says soothingly. Isaac shakes his head, looking up now but only at the opposite wall, not at Derek. Derek takes his hand away, going back to his previous position.

“I do,” he says sternly, but before Derek can argue he’s speaking again. “I’ve been avoiding you ever since I got back.” Derek wants to tell him that it’s okay, mainly because he was doing it, too, but Isaac continues, his word cutting Derek like a knife in his chest.

“I was- I was afraid of seeing you, I thought you- I was afraid of what you might think of me.” A tear runs down Isaac’s cheek, and Derek feels helpless as he opens his mouth but no words come out. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed, but- I know that you think I was stupid for what I was doing but I was just- just-”

“Just helping a friend,” Derek says hollowly, feeling like he’s about to throw up. He can’t help but think that his father is to blame for Isaac always being like this, he knows his father’s the reason he’s like this. So afraid of disappointing everybody, of disappointing Derek. Derek pulls him close, Isaac sniffling against his chest as Derek holds him tight.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Derek says quietly, but loud enough for Isaac to hear. “You were protecting your friend, how could I be disappointed in you for that?” Isaac sniffs. “You were really brave, and I’m so proud of you for it.” Isaac latches onto his jumper, burying his face in it. Derek wonders when he became a father figure to this kid.

“I’m sorry, too,” he admits, a little bit later. Isaac pulls back to look at him, and Derek finds it hard to look back at his watery eyes.

“For what?” Derek feels the guilt creeping its way back into his mind, and he looks away, feeling Isaac’s expectant gaze against his skin. He sighs.

“I’m your alpha, I should have been looking after you better.” In the corner of his eyes he can see Isaac shifting, shaking his head at him.

“No, you-”

“Should have protected you. I should have stood up for you before they-”

“Derek,” Isaac says, with such determination that it halts his thought process. His mouth snaps shut, still looking anywhere but Isaac. “Derek look at me.” Derek shakes his head, and he hears Isaac shifting closer. “Derek,” he says softly, and it has Derek finally turning to look at him. Isaac stares at him, eyes searching his face.

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t,” he says, a bitter smile on his face that soon fades as quick as it appears. “It was- Scott, he-” His voice breaks on the name, eyes dipping to the floor. Derek swallows past a lump in his throat.

“He’s coming back,” Derek fills in for him, because something about Isaac makes him believe that there’s a chance it’s possible. And if he was having doubts, well, he wouldn’t have said as much anyway. He thinks of Stiles, and yeah, Scott’s coming back.

“He’s dead,” Isaac says lowly, and Derek freezes, feels his shoulders tense as he slowly turns to Isaac. “Scott’s dead.”

“What?” his voice cracks, swallowing past a lump.

“He-” he pauses, taking a long breath in. “Scott’s dead, Derek.” Derek can feel his heartrate rising, can’t actually believe it as much as he already thought it to be true.

“Scott McCall?” he breathes.

“Yes, Derek, Scott McCall!” Isaac raises his voice, and it wavers as he speaks, and edge of desperation to it. Isaac’s not really one for yelling. Derek’s on his knees in seconds, shushing him, urging him to calm down as Isaac looks like he’s about to lose it. His fingers curl and uncurl into his trousers, shaking his head, tears streaming down his face.

“What happened?” he asks levelly, but Isaac still shakes his head, muttering nonsense under his breath. “Isaac.”

“I killed him.” Derek stares at him, Isaac meeting his eyes when he says it, and when he does, he seems to calm a little. Derek just watches him, soon snapping out of it and grabbing both of Isaac’s arms in his hands.

“Walk me through it, tell me what happened,” he says with conviction, like this doesn’t affect him as much as it actually is. Isaac considers him, taking even breaths before speaking. Derek tries not to think too hard about the image of Isaac killing McCall.

“We- They had us in this… chamber. This room- we were chained up and they were-” he swallows, “They knew it was Scott, that I had nothing to do with it, but they wouldn’t let him talk, they were- hurting him, threatening him. They were killing him. But they covered his mouth and-”

“Isaac, calm breaths,” Derek says, breathing along with him.

“They wanted me to tell them- to tell them what he’d been doing. Scott made me not tell, he kept shaking his head at me every time they asked me a question. I- I kept saying I didn’t know anything, and- they’d hurt him worse every time but he told me not to tell them anything so I didn’t and then they- they-”

“Killed him?” Derek finishes for him quietly. Isaac stills at the words, but nods with a shaky breath. “How are you sure he’d dead?” Derek asks, afraid to know the answer. He expects something like a broad sword through the waist, a chainsaw cutting off his head, maybe even a lead pipe through his chest, nothing at all like what Isaac says next.

“They injected him with wolf’s bane,” he hears Isaac say, well, what he thinks Isaac said. It’s the last thing he would have expected from hunters, to kill him in a way that’s semi-humane, like he was on death row getting the lethal injection. He would’ve expected something drastic. “I watched him die, I heard his heart stop beating.”

Derek nods at him, blinks a few times before standing up again, gently taking his seat by Isaac’s side again. Isaac’s gaze doesn’t follow him, he just continues to stare down at the floor. “Don’t make me say it.”

Isaac turns his head and looks at him, eye not quite meeting his. “Maybe if I had just told them the truth then maybe they might have let him off. Maybe they’d- Maybe he’d still be here.” Derek watches him, wonders how someone as smart as Isaac can think like this, wonders how Isaac can actually believe those words to be even possibly true.

“Maybe,” he says. “Or they would have done it anyway, whether you told them or not. Or maybe they’d have killed you, too, since then they would have known you were in on it.” Isaac’s eyes dip, as if only now realizing what actually happened that day. “Isaac,” he says, and he catches Isaac’s eyes this time. “Scott died, saving your life.”

Isaac’s eyes are glassy with unshed tears, his lips thinning as they press together and he nods, as if finally understanding. “So you see why I’m having trouble with idea that this is your fault.”  Derek pats Isaac’s back with his hand and rests it there as Isaac sighs.

“Thank you,” he says, shocking Derek, who’s expression probably says as much. Isaac looks lighter than he has since he got back days ago.

“You don’t need to-”

“I do,” Isaac interrupts him with determination, and Derek doesn’t push. “I haven’t- I haven’t slept in days, Derek, and when I do I- all I can see when I close my eyes is his face. I _saw_ him, Derek. I watched him die, this- black blood oozing out of his mouth and ears and nose and eyes, he- I heard his heart stop, I saw _everything_ ,” he chokes, and Derek hauls him closer, not just because Isaac needs it, but because he does, too.

“It’s over now,” he whispers.

Isaac doesn’t talk anymore, and neither does Derek. The room goes silent, nothing but the sound of their laboured breathing, Derek’s head resting against Isaac’s. He tries not to picture any of what Isaac just said, tries not to think about what it must do to Isaac.

God knows he’s in the same situation with his own guilt.

There’s only one thing he can think about, and as much as he tries, he can’t shake the thoughts from his head.

What he’s going to say or how he’s going to say it. He’s going to have to do it tomorrow, knows he can’t ignore this.

He’s going to have to tell Stiles.

::: :::

Stiles is still on the couch when his father arrives home a couple of hours later. He’s sprawled across all three cushions, face half meshed into the arm at one end. He can feel himself dozing from the boredom of channel surfing, not liking anything he comes across but not looking for anything either. That is until he changes over to the local news network.

He sighs, continuing to flick through the channels again. He doesn’t need to listen to Leslie Ryan talk yet again about how the numbers of Therianthropes caught in the area is decreasing. The number of Therianthropes caught in the area has decreased by almost half of what it was last year. And he knows the questions they’re asking.

Does that mean they’re beating the virus? Does that mean the infected are getting better at hiding themselves? Does it mean everything will be back to what they deem normal soon? Or does it simply mean that John Stilinski, our town sheriff, and the ATC are just getting sloppy in their line of work?

He rolls his eyes when he finds himself back on the news channel. He knows what it means, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it. On one hand the number is down, which is great, but he knows that it’s only because most of the wolves have already been locked up. Not so great.

He moves away from the subject, muting the TV before lying on his back staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t want his thoughts on this to mix with his thoughts on his father, he doesn’t know if he can stop it from influencing his decision.

He doesn’t know if he’s even made the _right_ decision, even though he’s practically spent the entire evening thinking. He opted to watch TV at some stage not too long ago in an attempt to clear his head, but he doesn’t think it was very successful.

But he supposes he’ll know if he made the right decision or not.

It’s not a moment later that he hears his father pushing his key into the front door. He hears it click open, followed by his father’s voice. “Stiles, you home?” he calls from the doorway. Stiles sits up, putting the remote back on the coffee table.

“Living room,” he replies, quieter. He can hear his father rustling as he shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up, the rattle of dropping his keys in the bowl, the sounds of footsteps drawing closer until his father is standing in the threshold of the living room door.

“Hey,” his father says warmly, a small smile on his face that looks happier than it looks polite. Stiles tries not to smile back up at him.

“Hey, dad,” he greets, his father moving further into the room to turn off the TV. Stiles tries not to feel too guilty about leaving it on when his father’s around. It’s obviously a sore spot for the two of them, but he hopes it doesn’t cause any tension between them. They don’t need it right now.

“Leslie Ryan’s not invited to dinner,” he mutters to himself, smiling at his son as he puts the remote back on the coffee table. Stiles takes that a signal that everything’s okay, smiling back at him, feeling lighter at the comment.

“I was just about to go and put that on, actually,” he grunts, sitting forward to stand up but his father gestures for him to stay where he’s seated. He pauses, doesn’t sit back as his father moves back to the door.

“No need,” he comes back holding a white plastic bag. “I picked something up on the way home, if that’s alright.” He discards the bag on the coffee table, Stiles watching from his seat in silence as he empties the bag, two white cartons, a set of chopsticks, a plastic fork for Stiles because he’s a klutz and can’t use chop sticks and two sodas.

His father offers him one of the white cartons, but Stiles doesn’t take it, just blinks up at him as his father holds it closer and closer. “What?” his father asks under Stiles’ scrutiny. “It’s from that noodle place you like out on Main.” Stiles looks down at the carton and back to his father.

“You ordered take-out? Really?” he asks disbelievingly, taking the carton when it looks like his father’s arm is about to fall off. Just another reason he shouldn’t be eating stuff like this. His father sighs, taking his own carton before slumping back in the recliner across from Stiles.

His father’s about to reply when Stiles’ growling stomach cuts him off, and Stiles curses himself. His father’s mouth snaps shut and forms a smug smile. “Seems to me like it’s not so much of a problem after all.”

Stiles holds his hands up in defeat, but not before he takes a rather large mouth full of noodles, letting them hang out of his mouth and making his father scrunch up his nose. “Alright, alright, you got me. I was just thinking that maybe you could have chosen an- I don’t know, healthier option?”

“Got extra vegetables in mine. And chicken. And the noodles are gluten-free. God forbid I have bacon and red meat in the same month.”

Stiles stares at him, impressed, before nodding and going back to his noodles. “Just making sure you didn’t think you were getting away with no vegetables tonight,” Stiles says around a mouthful of noodles. “But I’m afraid it’s vegetables again tomorrow.” His father points down at his food in protest, mouth also full. “One’s that aren’t smothered in soy sauce.”

His father rolls his eyes as Stiles smirks at him. He loves when he wins. They fall into a comfortable silence, which is new. Mainly because usually when they’re not talking somebody’s angry, or they’re not talking for fear of making someone angry.

“How was your day?” his father asks then, catching him by surprise as he sucks in a noodle and making him choke. He rushes for his soda, and his father sighs in exasperation. “That bad, huh? Sorry I asked.” There’s no heat to what he says, and he likes that they can be like this. He just wishes they could be like this with a different topic.

Stiles hasn’t had the best of days.

“Was good,” he nods, his father pausing to look at him as if waiting for more. As if pleading for more. “Well, it was kinda boring actually.” What else can he say? He went to the park and had a panic attack and injured his hand, he went to the ATC facility to meet up with some stranger?

His father hums anyway, as if he understands. “I had lacrosse practise, though. I think Coach is finally starting to notice me.” His father raises his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah?”

Stiles nods, blinking at how proud his father looks right now, the intensity of the look he’s watching him with. “That’s great.” Stiles just nods, and like that they’re in silence again. It’s getting awkward again, and just as he’s about to do something about it his father speaks. “Does Derek play lacrosse?”

Stiles stills.

“Derek?”

“Yeah, Derek. The new guy you were telling me about this morning. You know, the one you secretly like but won’t tell me about because I’m your dad and you’re not in third grade anymore and not confessing your undying love and hopes for a spring wedding.” Stiles takes a moment to find his bearings, ignoring the Lydia jab.

“Uh, no. No, Derek doesn’t play lacrosse,” he says quietly, eyes on his food. “How was your day?” he asks, changing the subject. He doesn’t want to have to deal with the anxiety of talking about Derek, not only because it’s _Derek_ and an entirely different Derek than to what his father thinks, but also because he doesn’t want to start off the truce with his dad by lying to his face.

His father sighs tiredly, shaking his head with a small, fond smile on his face. “Busy,” he answers. Stiles looks up, making sure to look casual and interested. Not to say he’s not interested, he just doesn’t want to look so distracted by his thoughts.

“You remember Misses Aleman?” Of course Stiles remembers her. He tries not to look so sad when he speaks, coughing before doing so to clear any lumps in the way.

“Of course,” he answers honestly, thankful that his voice didn’t break. She was one of his mother’s friends, although she was a lot older than his mom. She’s an old lady now, he sees her every now and then on her front porch, pretends not to see her to save himself the trauma of talking about his mom.

“She thought one of her cats got stuck up a tree, called in such a frenzy that I just drove down myself. Ended up spending an hour and a half there, stubborn woman wouldn’t let me leave.” Stiles laughs, it sounds like her, pretending not to have tears in his eyes as he stares at the wall.

“She probably had you running around doing her chores.” His father hums.

“Wanted me to go out her back yard and pull some of the weeds out from the cracks in the concrete. Told her if I bent over she’d need to call another deputy in to pick me back up again. So she’s knitting me a sweater now instead. It’s spring, why would I need a sweater?” Stiles laughs, some of the memories coming back to him of when he was a kid.

“I used to do that for her, when she’d babysit me. Got a dollar a piece for every chore I done.”

“You used to come home caked in mud and Mom would be going nuts. And you’d never want to shower, you said that way you couldn’t play predator with Scott. Don’t even ask me how you knew who that was,” his father laughs too himself.

Stiles is pretty sure he stops breathing for a little bit. He didn’t think they were at the point of talking about Claudia. It’s not something he’s ready to talk about, least of all with his father. He’s not sure he’ll ever be ready. He pushes the thoughts of _that_ night away before they even enter his head.

“She was asking how you were,” his father tells him, and Stiles looks back at him for the first time in a while, he realizes. Stiles doesn’t need for his father to spell it out for him, he knows this is his father’s way of asking, too.

“Tell her I’m good.” His father considers him for a moment, before nodding with a relieved smile. Stiles leaves his half-eaten noodles on the coffee table, standing up. His dad goes from looking pleased to looking dejected in an instant, and Stiles almost rushes to explain himself.

“I’ve got some homework to do, and I’m gonna shower before bed, so,” he jerks his thumb towards the door, and his father relaxes slightly, putting his own food down. “Goodnight, dad,” he says, leaving the room with a little wave. He’s walking up the first step up the stairs when his father answers.

“Goodnight, Son.” He doesn’t say it quietly this time, like he’s afraid to let Stiles hear it. He says it casually, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like it hasn’t been building up for years, or that it carries such weight that it should hurt to even think about saying the words. He says it like it’s true.

His eyes tear up, all the air rushing out of his lungs as soon as the words register in his head. He pauses with his leg in the air ready to take the next step up. When he looks back over his shoulder the TV is on, and his father is laughing at whatever’s happening on ‘Married… With Children’.

He smiles to himself before continuing on his way up the stairs.

He sleeps the entire way through the night for the first time in what feels like forever.

And all he can think is that yeah, he made the right choice.

::: :::

“Someone looks happy today,” Allison skips up to him, books cradled in her arms against her chest. Stiles shakes his head without looking at her, and she frees one hand to poke his beaming smile for emphasis.

Stiles pushes her hand away, holding the door to the parking lot open for her.

“I take it last night went well,” Allison strides ahead, a happy smile mirroring his own.

Stiles hums, fishing for his keys in his pocket. “How did you know?” he asks, not really surprised that she knew about his decision despite him not even mentioning it today. He suspected she knew something was up, he guesses Lydia knows now, too.

“Please,” Allison scoffs. “I knew before you did.”

“That-” Stiles pauses to think about that before he continues. “Is probably correct.” Allison only smiles smugly at him over her shoulder, stopping when they reach their cars which are parked next to each other.

“Thank you,” Stiles says softly to her when they both just stand there smiling at each other. Allison dips her head shyly. “For everything.”

“You don’t need to thank me, really.” Stiles shakes his head at her, stepping closer to her until they’re just inches apart.

“I do. You gave me the kick up the ass I needed, and for that I am thankful,” he leans in and kisses her dimpled cheek, and she pulls him in for a tight hug that he melts into.

“I’m always here to kick your ass,” she says soothingly. Stiles snorts into her shoulder, hugging her tighter. He doesn’t know where he’d be without this girl.

“You’re spending _way_ too much time with Lydia.” This time Allison snorts. “Seriously, though, it’s terrifying.” Allison releases him, but doesn’t let go completely, looking at him with fond eyes.

“ _Seriously_ , I’m happy for you,” she says, squeezing his shoulders. Stiles nods, tilting his head to side as she looks up at him. “I don’t know, you look like a huge weight’s been lifted off you.”

Stiles smiles. “Couldn’t agree more,” he replies, letting her go. “Talk later?” Allison steps back, nodding her head.

“Yeah,” she rounds her car, waving briefly. “Lydia’ll pick you up soon.”

“Alright,” he says, getting into the jeep and releasing a long breath. He waits a moment before driving off, and he’s out on the road in minutes.

He thinks about simple things, well, things that are simple now. Like what he’s going to make for dinner later. His father’s working late at the station tonight, so he probably won’t be home. Knowing his dad he’ll probably take an hour off to come home for dinner.

Maybe he could do something. He considers cooking and then taking the food down to the station in containers. They could eat together in his office like they used to. His dad would love that, hell, Stiles would love that. Stiles still can’t believe that this is his life now.

He’s planning to bring his father dinner at work and eat with him and knows that when he gets there his father will say ‘Hey, son’. _Son_. He laughs a little to himself, decides that yeah, that’s what he’s going to do.

He grabs his phone where it’s sitting silently on the dash, unlocking it as he keeps his eyes trained on the road. He glances down at his phone as he texts his father the details for later. There’s a loud crash up ahead, and he looks up just in time to see two cars collide at a crossroad in front of him.

He barely has any time to react before he’s hit with the airbag.

And everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for panic attacks in the third scene.  
> If you liked it drop a kudos or a comment and let me know what you think! :D


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